


Glow

by CanterburyBells



Category: Dragon Quest Builders (Video Games)
Genre: Alcohol, Kissing, M/M, Tenderness, lots of kissing oh god im so sorry, the M rating is just to be safe!, there's a good bit of cussing but nothing sexual happens at all!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:55:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26020768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CanterburyBells/pseuds/CanterburyBells
Summary: Zach and Malroth spend a night at the underground lake.
Relationships: Builder/Malroth (Dragon Quest Builders 2), Male Builder/Malroth (Dragon Quest Builders 2)
Comments: 59
Kudos: 46





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Howdy everyone! I'm back and crazier than ever with almost 30k to share:D I've been sitting on this for a while bc editing it was such a massive hurdle, but I finally got it done and I'm happy to wash my hands of it LOL. So this fic only spans one night, but I broke it into several chapters for easier readability (sorry in advance if anyone has on email notifications!). I'm posting it all tonight, but give me just a bit on the last 2 or 3 chapters bc I'm still speed re-reading over them for any pesky little mistakes that are hiding from my hawk eyesOwO 
> 
> Just a note: Please don't think about the KD timeline too hard while reading bc I absolutely didn't while I wroteXD If anything clashes...just ignore it haha! I took several "artistic liberties" with the timeline, the appearance of certain items, and even where certain items show up. I am a firm believer in "My story, my rules!" LOL just give a little suspension of disbelief if anything doesn't make perfect sense<3
> 
> Alrighty, onward to the fic!!

** Malroth **

The sun over Khrumbul-Dun is finally setting for the day as Malroth heads for the shower room next to the Silver Bar. It has been another long day of sweating and bullying the miners to put their backs into their work and to stop gawping at girls, so he's looking forward to finally cooling off in the pool this evening.

Right after the bar had been finished, the pool had quickly become filthy with sand and grit from everyone’s bodies after long days of work, and the entire thing had to be drained and refilled again with the bottomless pot. As a result, Babs and Den had set a strict policy of everyone washing off before getting in the pool so that the water stayed as clean as possible and didn’t waste their resident builder’s time. Malroth wants to beat everyone else to the showers so he can clean off and enjoy the water for a while before the pool gets too crowded.

It’s unfortunate, then, that a hand snags his wrist and pulls him to a stop right before he can make it through the shower room door. He's seconds away from suplexing Digby or Dougie or whoever the hell has the gall to grab him when he spies the yellow glove out of the corner of his eye. He looks back right into the smiling face of his dopey best friend and feels a scowl start to creep onto his face.

“Where have you been all day?” he whines. “I’ve been so bored, and Den keeps trying to make me do chores around the bar.”

Zach squeezes his wrist once before he drops it and quirks a smile. “Wow, actually having to do something more productive than yelling at the miners. That must be tough.” He sidesteps a playful swipe from Malroth and adds, “I was around town almost all day clearing space to expand the smithy. Did you not see me?”

“Yeah, but that’s boring too.” Malroth leans against the wall behind him, edging away from the bright glare of the sun hovering just above the mountains outside of town. “I wanna fight monsters, not landscape.”

Zach snorts and moves to join Malroth under the shade from the building. “Maybe _you_ can fight monsters all the time, but some of us have to take breaks and do boring stuff like eat and build from time to time.”

Malroth hums noncommittally and steers him back to the topic at hand before he has the chance to start listing the ways Malroth could pitch in before eventually wrecking everything. “Where have you been for the past few hours though? Magrog said you finished a while ago.”

Zach rubs the back of his neck—a nervous tick of his. “That’s kind of why I came to get you, actually. I’ve got something way more fun to do tonight than listen to the guys all knock their heads together in the pool. Wanna come?” He holds his hand out, palm up in invitation, and wiggles his fingers with a grin.

Malroth hesitates for a split second. He has sweat in places that a few months ago he didn’t know he could sweat in, and he’d probably kill anybody else for standing in his way of taking a refreshing shower right now.

But.

Zach isn’t anybody else.

So he makes a show of his defeat, tilting his head back and groaning exaggeratedly, before taking Zach’s hand. “Alright, alright. But this better not involve any more sweating.”

Zach’s answering smile practically glows, and his eyes actually do sparkle a little in the orange light of sunset. It’s hard to stay grumpy with him when he looks so pleased, even when his next words are, “Okay, but I have one last stop to make before we go.” Malroth holds back another disgruntled noise and allows himself to be dragged all the way across town to the kitchens.

Zach leaves him waiting outside while he runs in to grab…something. He wouldn’t give a straight answer no matter how many times Malroth badgered him on the way over. Malroth knocks his head back against the wall and waits, watching everyone else in town head for the showers without him. He raises an arm and gives his pit a discreet sniff and immediately gags. Zach is gonna owe him for this.

He spots two of the horn-wearing dancers that entertain at the bars at night (he still doesn’t understand the whole idea behind calling them bunny girls when they look way more badass than a wimpy bunicorn) walking closely to each other as they head for the showers. One of them leans over and places a soft kiss right on the other girl’s mouth when she turns to look at her, and Malroth stares. The girls giggle loudly and swing their clasped hands together as they walk out of Malroth’s line of sight. He continues to stare long after they’re gone, stomach feeling strange and a memory niggling the back of his mind.

_Malroth caught Zach before he started up the stairs to the dormitory and immediately started dragging him towards the outskirts of town with no hesitation in his steps._

_“Hey, buddy," Zach said, voice laced with caution and extreme confusion. "What are we doing?"_

_Malroth tried not to shiver with revulsion as he thought about what he had just seen. "We're skipping town because it's full of some real weirdos. And not just Perry levels of weird. I'm talking full-on cannibals!”_

_"…What."_

_Malroth scowled because it really didn’t sound like Zach was understanding how fucked up this place was yet. When he had spied two of the miners sequestered away behind the bar chewing on each other’s faces, he knew that he and Zach would need to make a break for it as soon as possible. He wasn’t going to just sit by and let his friend get devoured. He was only decent for, like, two good bites anyway with those twiggy limbs of his. And if anyone tried to chomp on Malroth, they’d be swallowing their own teeth after a knuckle sandwich._

_"I just saw two of the miners trying to_ eat _each other's_ faces _, Zach! We can't stay here; I won't let us be next! Let’s just go back to the island and tell Lulu this place was a bust. We’ll find somewhere different that isn’t full of brawny brain eaters and dangerous, horned high-kickers.”_

_Malroth's steps only quickened and his iron grip tightened further when Zach tried to dig his heels in. But he finally turned around when he heard helpless laughter. His face screwed up in dismay. Did Zach actually think this was funny? If anyone came after them, he was totally going to push Zach in front of himself as a tribute._

_"You wouldn't happen to be talking about the two behind the Copper Bar, would you?" Zach asked through his giggles._

_"Yes! Do you still not believe me? You saw them yourself then, right?"_

_"Yeah, they uh..." Zach finally got his arm loose due to Malroth's absolute astonishment, and he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "They were just making out, Malroth."_

_“Making out?” What the hell was going on?_

_“You know." Zach scratched his cheek and glanced at Malroth from under his eyelashes before quickly looking away. "Kissing.”_

Malroth is still unclear on how Zach could tell the difference between kissing and face gnawing when he is almost positive that he had heard the two miners slurping each other up like a particularly unappealing stew. He fights back the urge to gag. But Zach had gone on to explain that the miners were likely just kissing because they were drunk and wanted to have fun or get a little heated. Malroth doesn't get how shoving your face against someone else’s added up to having fun. Where's the adrenaline? The rush of danger? Zach had also refused to expand on what he meant by “getting heated”, but as he had guided Malroth back to the dormitory, standing comfortably close under the dark blanket of the desert’s night sky, he had told Malroth some more about kissing.

People shove their faces together for a ridiculous number of reasons. Apparently, they do it for fun, or to get heated, or because they love someone. That last one was a sticking point. There’s still a lot about love he’s missing, for all that he understands about friendship. Ordelia has been very eager to help in that regard, explaining different types of love to him and assuring him that it entails more than making goo-goo eyes over bunny girls or drunkenly making out behind a bar.

The fact that there are so many reasons to kiss and so many kinds of love makes his head spin. Romantic love, platonic love, physical love, familial love. The list is unending and all the more confusing for its lack of limits and defying of definition. And there are so many overlaps between love and other feelings! The more people he questions, the more frustrating the answers are.

Den had told him that the person you love gives you a reason to wake up in the morning and face the day with a smile. They give you something to look forward to even when things feel hopeless.

Digby had said that if you love someone, you want to be around them all the time and support them even in tough situations—a person you’d do anything for to make them smile.

Dougie had shouted loudly enough for the entire desert to hear that he loves Babs because she gives him the courage and strength to fight even when he’s scared because he wants to protect her and keep her safe.

Babs had told him with a secretive smile that love is strong enough to conquer anything. Love is understanding and acceptance, and some of the strongest love is between friends. But she had also told him right before he left to mull over her answer that “Love is in the small things.” She said that acts of love don’t have to be grand and loud. Sometimes they’re as simple as finding time to spend together with someone.

What really confuses Malroth is that during all of these conversations, the first face that always crops up in his mind is…Zach’s.

And it bothers him to no end.

Is it possible to love someone without even knowing it?

Despite only knowing Zach for a few months, Malroth knows without a doubt that he would follow him anywhere if he asked.

Even if he didn’t ask.

He would go without hesitation because Zach is a magnet for danger and has the self-preservation instincts of a ladybug. If Malroth weren’t there, Zach would be dead in two seconds flat, and the world would be so much less interesting without him here making dumb jokes and blowing things up for Malroth’s amusement. Zach makes cool weapons for him even though he’s not very interested in fighting. Malroth prefers his company over any of the other weirdos they’ve met so far. And if anyone ever has a negative thing to say about any of Zach’s creations, Malroth will be the first to shut them down so that he doesn’t have to see that dopey smile fall off of his friend’s face.

But everyone had described their own version of love to him, and along with each type of love comes different _kisses_. He has seen Babs give her dad a kiss on the cheek every morning. He saw Ordelia blow a kiss at Digby once, and Digby had practically launched himself into the pool with all of his clothes on to avoid it and received a stern scolding from Babs as a result. Another even more eventful time was when he saw one of the miners kiss his own hand before slapping his friend on the ass and running away.

And now he just watched those two dancers kiss on the lips. He doesn’t know how to sort them out. What kind of kiss denotes a specific kind of love? Can you have one without the other? Do they all just overlap so impossibly that he has no hope of understanding?

It’s all just so _confusing_. The only person he hasn’t asked about love yet is Zach. But every time he considers bringing it up, he remembers how he couldn’t help but to think of him when learning about love, and he feels the urge to turn tail. Talking about kissing with Zach had made him feel weird and unsettled enough. Instead of running like a coward, he usually ends up in the Pumping Station tossing anyone who has the balls to face him into the easily-toppled adobe walls just to get his mind off of his disconcerting inner thoughts of shiny blue eyes and sunny hair.

Out of everyone, though, he wonders what Zach thinks about love the most.

He’d probably just say that he loves building.

Malroth startles when he hears the creaking hinges of the kitchen’s saloon-style doors. Zach is still partially turned around, waving at someone over his shoulder, but now a large wicker basket hangs from his other arm. “Thanks again, Babs. I owe you one!” The doors swing shut behind him, and he apologizes to Malroth for taking so long.

Malroth sees his chance to bug Zach again and pounces. “You can make it up to me by telling me what’s in the basket.” He tries for a sweetly innocent smile—one that he has seen Lillian use before when she’s obviously up to no good.

Zach just laughs good-naturedly. “Yeah, nice try, but that smile doesn’t work for you. You still look way too much like a troublemaker.”

“Eh, worth a shot.”

The town is relatively empty as they walk back through the center and wave to Goldirox. The golem waves back but is clearly distracted by peeking over at the pool where everyone is having fun without him. Zach has been mentioning some ideas for possibly clearing more space in town for Goldirox to move around in, but Malroth knows just as well as Zach does that the town is still much too small for that and Zach’s bleeding heart is getting ahead of him.

It’s as they finally approach the shoddy staircase to the mines that Malroth pulls up short. “Zach, please don’t tell me that you’re gonna make me trek through the mines. I want to cool down and relax, not fight a bunch of monsters.”

Zach makes an obviously faked sound of surprise and brings his free hand to his chest in exaggerated disbelief. “You don’t want to fight monsters? After you _just_ complained about not getting to? Who are you, and what have you done with Malroth?”

“I left him back at the pool where he could drink himself into a coma instead of marching through musty tunnels,” Malroth responds dryly. He doesn’t even have his club on him. Not like he needed it in the pool. Oh well. He’ll just use his fists if they run into trouble. “Where are we even going in the caves this late at night anyway?”

“It’s a surprise! It’s no fun if I just tell you. Have a little faith.”

Zach flashes him a playful smile and keeps walking, apparently confident that Malroth will follow.

Damn.

He grumbles to himself but otherwise remains quiet as he plods down the stairs after Zach. He focuses on the basket swinging from his arm while they walk. While it’s fun to pester him about its contents, he already knows what’s in it. It doesn’t take a genius to guess; all it takes is a really good sense of smell.

The basket is wafting the savory scent of smoked mushrooms and grilled meat toward him, but he still isn’t sure why Zach brought it along. They won’t exactly have time to stuff their faces in the middle of a fight, but there’s a special glimmer in Zach’s eyes that makes him reluctant to ask again. He looks decidedly pleased with himself—just as he always does when he’s thought long and hard about an idea, put it into action, and is confident that it will go exactly according to plan. Malroth won't rain on that parade by being nosy when he can just wait a little longer. So he lets Zach keep his secrets.

But there _is_ one thing he’s still curious about.

“You know, you never hang out at the pool with me.” He waves off Zach’s questioning—and rather shifty—glance. “I’m not saying that I don’t want to hang out with you wherever we’re going, but it would be way more fun picking on Digby and Dougie at the pool if you were there.”

Zach’s shoulders relax, and he snorts and hefts his basket to a more comfortable spot in the crook of his elbow. “You may want to cut those two some slack every now and then. Fear isn’t as good of a motivator as you think it is.”

Malroth firmly disagrees with that, but he refuses to get sidetracked. “So, why don’t you ever come, then? Is it because the guys get all weird when they see the girls in their swimsuits? I know it’s kind of annoying, but—”

“That’s not it!” Zach interrupts quickly. Malroth glances at him briefly as they turn a corner, and in the dim glow of a low-burning torch, Zach looks rather pink. Malroth’s eyes narrow. “I’m usually just pretty tired after building all day, and it’s easier to fall asleep when the dormitory isn’t full of snoring.” Malroth sees his hand twitch like it was about to move up—to rub the back of his neck, he thinks to himself—but Zach quickly controls the movement, and his hand settles against his leg again.

Malroth hums like he believes him. He decides to prod some more. “Is it because _you_ get all weird when you see the girls in their swimsuits?” Zach sputters and starts blabbering weak denials about the dormitory again, but Malroth ignores him. “I mean, I’m not gonna judge you or anything—wait, no, I’d totally judge you. I don’t really get what’s so special about it.”

“Malroth,” Zach finally cuts in. “I don’t want to stare at the girls, okay? Can we please drop it?”

No.

He doesn’t want to drop it.

Maybe…

“Do you want to stare at the guys, then?”

If it’s possible, Zach gets even redder at that. “Ah, so that’s it. Geez, don’t look so ready to throw yourself off a mountain. Those two miners making out behind the Copper Bar were obviously interested in guys, and I just saw two of the dancers kissing today, so it’s not like that’s weird. You just need some exposure therapy! Come to the pool, get a few good eyefuls, and then you can stop avoiding fun stuff, and we can tag team and convince Dougie that there’s a sea monster in the pool.”

Zach looks completely shell-shocked and continues to walk silently for a few stretching moments. And then, “Where did you even learn the words “exposure therapy” from?”

 _That’s_ what he’s focusing on?

“You remember that time I was so sunburnt that I couldn’t raise my arms?” Malroth wishes that the tunnels were brighter so he could better see the annoyance that takes over Zach’s face.

“How could I forget?” he huffs. “You almost bit my finger off when I had to hand feed you marshrooms, and you whined like a huge baby every time I smeared gel on you.”

“It was cold! Do you know how awful cold nipples feel?” Malroth shivers at the memory of the astringent, medicinal scent of the cool gel sticking to his skin as it dried. As burnt as Malroth had been, Zach had looked equally as red when he helped Malroth cover himself in the medicine he had mixed up, but he denied feeling warm at all. He had been oddly evasive about the whole thing, and Malroth suspects that he probably had better things to do than listen to him bitch and moan about his bad choices.

But despite how painful and sticky the entire ordeal had been, it was rather pleasant to have Zach focused just on him for a while. Even if he was berating him for being an idiot the entire time.

“You’d better be glad they didn’t burn to a crisp and fall off, you dumbass!” Yeah, just like that.

“At least I kept my pants on. Just imagine if I had gone out naked. Then you’d have had to rub it all over my—”

 _“_ What is even the point to this story?” Zach’s voice comes out shrill. “I’m going to need therapy just from being exposed to _you_.”

“Well, if you would have let me finish,” Malroth sneers. “Magrog told me if I stood in the sun long enough, I would become immune to burning after I tanned. And since an immunity to fire would be super useful to fight that other lizard out in the desert—”

Zach groans and stares up at the ceiling with what looks like regret. “Malroth, you can’t become immune to fire by getting sunburnt enough. Don’t try it again, _please_. How about you try wearing more clothes from now on and see if that helps?” He hefts the basket again, switching it to his other arm, and gives Malroth no time to argue back that clothes are completely flammable. “Now come on, pick up the pace! I want to get there sometime before the end of the week.”

Zach hurries ahead, forcing Malroth to chase after him, and continues to ignore Malroth’s insistent questions.


	2. Chapter 2

** Zach **

Zach has been planning this all day. It was more of a spontaneous decision than anything, but he really misses spending time with just Malroth. Khrumbul-Dun is a bustling mining town, full of rowdy muscle men, drunken shenanigans, and near-constant activity. It’s a far cry from the steady, focused toil he experienced in Furrowfield. While he greatly enjoys seeing his hard work laid out in shining metal walls and gleaming stage floors, there is very little time for him and Malroth to just run off on their own and find adventure. The adventure they do find always has a sharp edge of danger to it. Instead of trekking across wide open plains and marshlands, each time they leave town together they delve a little bit deeper into the dark beneath the earth, and Zach is never able to truly enjoy these exhilarating trips when they’re usually accompanied by cowardly miners. So, rather than wait for an opportunity to hang out with Malroth to present itself, he decided to take matters into his own hands.

After hastily finishing up his work clearing space for an overhauled smithy, he had gathered all of the supplies he would need for a fun night at the Underground Lake with his best friend and disappeared into the mines for a few hours. He sneaks a quick glance to his side and catches Malroth sniffing the air discreetly. Hopefully he isn’t picking up on the foul odor of the liquid concoction that Zach had mixed and spread through the tunnels on his way down the first time to scare off the monsters for a few hours so that they could have a relaxing stroll to the lake. Mixed from the remainders of Bab’s failed dish attempts and some particularly poisonous fungi he had discovered growing in the damp, moldy corners of the mines, the scent had nearly driven even him away. Since there hasn’t been a single sign of a monster yet, and Malroth isn’t gagging, he considers that part of the plan a soaring success.

It had been challenging to juggle the stinking mixture and the rest of his supplies, but he had managed not to spill anything. He brought down a plethora of blankets, towels, and torches, and had even dug around the dormitory to find Malroth’s swimsuit so they could take a swim in the lake, which had made him feel rather creepy, honestly. Maybe he should have just made him an extra instead.

Most of his time was spent setting up the torches all over the cavern and carving out a rough set of stairs at the lake leading from the high ledge down to water level for them to use. But it would be worth it to have Malroth all to himself again. In a completely not-weird way. The most difficult part was dodging the miners on his way down so they didn’t ask questions and ruin his surprise.

Malroth has seemed a little off since Zach found him by the shower room—sort of pensive and stuck in his own head. But Zach is certain that he’ll kick off his funk after a long swim and a hearty dinner. He has everything set up by the lakeside already, and the hardest part—convincing Malroth to not spend the night drinking by the pool and bullying crybaby miners—was a success. They’re only a few minutes from the lake now, and he can already feel more questions bubbling up around Malroth like a pesky cloud.

He could really do without the nosy and surprisingly observant (but still not quite correct) guesses about why he avoids the pool, though.

He smoothly distracts Malroth with useless gossip and a few marginally guilty suggestions of his own on how to best trick Dougie into believing in a tiny pool monster and deflects further interrogation about their destination until they come up on the lakeside. He watches Malroth’s eyebrows shoot up when he sees what Zach had set up earlier. The sheer number of torches he placed have lit up nearly half of the cave in bright, cheery patches of warmth and light. The firelight flickers merrily against the rocky walls and softens the still darkness usually lingering in the cave.

“Whoa, what is all of this?” He curiously looks over the mass of blankets spread on the ground and the towels set to the side. Zach sets the picnic basket down carefully before striking a confident pose with his hands on his hips.

“This,” he says proudly. “Is gonna be _way_ better than the pool. Here.” He tosses Malroth the swimsuit he had haphazardly shoved in his bag. “Put this on. We’re gonna go swimming, and now we don’t have to worry about any muscle brains brawling when we’re trying to relax.”

Malroth holds the scrap of bright red fabric up and inspects it. “Is this my swimsuit? I was looking everywhere for this earlier! I was just gonna jump in the pool naked and dare Babs to kick me out if she had the guts to.”

Zach rolls his eyes and tries not to snort for fear of encouraging him. “Yeah, she definitely has the guts to, but she probably would have just drowned you with her bare hands instead. You wouldn’t have even had the chance to drink yourself into a coma.” He starts digging around in his bag again, arm buried nearly to the shoulder as he searches.

Malroth grumbles, “I wouldn’t have to worry about being strangled if someone could keep from stealing my clothes. Did you at least bring one for yourself or are you planning on skinny dipping? If you get to, then so do I!” He sounds as if he’s only seconds from stripping himself bare, so Zach scrambles to find his own suit before Malroth can start tearing clothes off.

“Nobody is skinny dipping! My suit is here somewhere...” His fingers finally catch on a length of fabric and with a solid tug he yanks it from the deep recesses of his bag. It’s still a perfectly pristine shade of red due to barely ever seeing the light of day. He motions for Malroth to turn around as he starts peeling off sweaty clothes. Malroth rolls his eyes but complies, and Zach hears him start kicking off his boots.

Every swimsuit worn in town was made from the cotton growing all around the underground lake and was colored with dye from gladiolus petals. They’re a real pain in the ass to put together considering how time-consuming it is to gather plants, but he had sewn one for himself just in case he ever found the fortitude to swim in the very pool he built with his own hands.

“I’m surprised you actually have a swimsuit. I’ve never seen you wear it. Do you just hide it under your clothes for a thrill?” Zach can hear the teasing tone underlying his words and expertly tosses his gloves over his shoulder, hearing them smack Malroth in the back of his head with a satisfying _thwack_. Malroth tosses his own back and misses him by a mile.

“Oh, didn’t you know?” He jokes back. “I do secret building projects wearing just my swimsuit, but no one ever catches me.” He finally shucks off the last of his clothes and hears Malroth dropping his own in a messy pile by his feet. He brings the swimsuit’s strings around from the back and ties a secure knot in the front before drawing the rectangle of cloth hanging down behind him between his legs and looping it up and over the knot. The remaining length of cloth hangs as an apron over his groin. It takes some tugging and shifting around, but he thinks he finally has all of his important bits covered.

Malroth snorts. “Good thing, too. If anyone saw you, they’d probably be blinded by your lily white ass.”

Zach looks at his boots and considers tossing them too. “You may want to wait until I get in the water, then. I’d hate for you to go blind and leave _me_ responsible for monster fighting.” He crouches down to fold his clothes neatly, keenly missing the comfort of them covering him. But the relief of finally feeling cool air drying the sweat sticking to him dulls any regret or discomfort.

As he’s letting his hair down out of its tie, he hears Malroth rustling around behind him and turns to see him with his hand halfway in the picnic basket, clothes left strewn on the cave floor behind him. Zach stands and clears his throat, crossing his arms over his chest both in an attempt to look disapproving and to cover himself somewhat. He carefully ignores the way Malroth’s swimsuit sits tantalizingly low on his hips and reveals much more skin than his usual, garish parachute pants do. 

“Hey, that’s for later. I thought you wanted to take a dip? Or was all of your complaining just for show?”

“Nothing about me is just for show,” Malroth replies, flexing his free arm and sticking his tongue out at Zach. The skin of his bicep gleams golden in the nearby torchlight. This was all possibly a very bad idea.

“Yeah, yeah. Come on, let’s jump in. If you eat right before you swim, you’ll get cramps. I wrapped the food up, so it should still be warm when we’re done.” He turns away and tries not to feel too exposed in this ridiculously skimpy piece of cloth. While he’s grateful for the modesty apron in the front, feeling cool cave air brush across his ass cheeks is not high on his list of thrills. He regrets following Babs’ sewing pattern to the letter and not making trunks instead; even his underclothes are more decent than this, geez.

Malroth follows him over to the ledge jutting out over the lake. “Cramps are for weaklings like Dougie. He always _conveniently_ gets them when I try to get him to come monster hunting with me. I offered to beat the cramps right out of him so he could come along, but then he ran off.”

“Imagine that,” Zach responds dryly. He stops right at the edge of the overhang and peers down at the crystal clear water. It reflects the light from the torches littering the cave like fireflies on the surface.

He’s about to mention the stairs he carved out when he feels another draft of chilly air brush past him. He shivers and squeezes his arms around himself more tightly. He’s starting to wonder if dealing with the entire rowdy town would have been worth it if he got to swim in water that was still warm from the heat of the sun instead of a freezing cold lake. Now that his sweat is drying on his skin, he’s feeling some regret.

“You know, I think I may just dip my feet in first,” he suggests, taking a small step back from the ledge. “It’ll probably be way too cold if I just jump—”

He suddenly feels two hands on his back, and then there’s no firm ground beneath his feet anymore. He yelps and has a split second to start plotting Malroth’s ultimate downfall before he hits the icy water and every thought except for how absolutely fucking cold it is flees his brain. When he comes up sputtering for air and coughing, teeth already chattering, he hears Malroth crowing above him on the ledge.

“You d-d-dick!” he yells back, rubbing ineffectually at the goosebumps already cropping up on his arms. All he manages to do is splash himself in the face with more water.

Malroth laughs even harder.

Zach strongly considers climbing his way out of the water like a vengeful spirit so he can beat him to death with his bare hands.

“You look like a wet cat!” Malroth wheezes. He’s bent over cackling with his hands braced on his knees, slapping one leg with what Zach sourly considers a rather overexaggerated amount of glee at his expense.

He hates how good Malroth looks laughing down at him. He stands straight again, grinning down at Zach with his hands braced on his hips, but Zach can’t tear his eyes away from how the amber firelight dances across his skin. Every inch of muscle glows enticingly between soft pools of shadow melting in the dips of his collarbones and between the defined lines of his abdomen. The bones on his necklace gleam as dangerously as his sharp smile and Zach has the sudden urge to dunk his face under the cold water to clear his head.

Fuck.

This is why he never goes to the pool. Why did he think this would be a good idea?

He tries to muster up the sheer force of will to tear his eyes away from Malroth’s muscles and blusters back through his chattering teeth, “C-c-come down here and f-fight me like a man!” Well, the only thing that could have made _that_ less menacing was if his voice had cracked in the middle.

Malroth, never one to back down from a challenge, strikes what is probably supposed to be a manly pose that he learned from the miners and calls out, “Alright, you asked for it!” Zach sees him take a few large steps back, and his eyes widen in alarm.

He wouldn’t.

He would.

Malroth leaps from the ledge at a run and screams, “Cannonball!” The shadow of his quickly descending form hovers right next to Zach’s shoulder, and Zach tries to wheel away from it in time to avoid the impending wave.

Malroth lands with a splash fit to rival a sunfish being yanked from the ocean. Zach is doused again, and he completely gives up rubbing his arms. He wipes his eyes roughly to clear them enough so that he can glare at Malroth, who comes up from the water only to immediately resume his laughing. “You should have seen your face!” He pulls an exaggerated expression of dumbfounded horror and quickly breaks it again when he laughs again.

Zach uses his distraction to splash him right in the face. Malroth recovers quickly and starts swimming after him with all the intensity of a shark. Zach yelps and hastily backpedals away from the dangerous look of promise written all over his face, splashing Malroth futilely as he approaches. The scream he lets out when Malroth leaps at him is cut through with helpless laughter, and they break into a tussle that bounces back and forth between dunking each other below the water and trying to leap on unsuspecting backs. They’re both much too slippery from the water to be very efficient at holding onto each other, so they’re forced to give up their grappling and settle for seeing who can make the other get more water up his nose. In the natural stillness of the cave, their laughter echoes in every corner and swims cheerfully around the dark ceiling.

Eventually they stop to catch their breath, and Zach leans back to let himself float once he’s sure that Malroth doesn’t have one last counterattack planned. He stares up at the ceiling and enjoys the warm feeling spreading through his chest that soothes the ache in his muscles from a hard day of work. Their playful battle has thawed the chill of the water, and it’s refreshing to feel the water slide over his scalp like cool rain and wash away old sweat. 

The underground lake is only mildly creepy without the constant sound of clanging coming from pickaxes seeking out iron veins. The cave seems to moan at times when a strong draft comes through, but the many waterfalls dotted throughout the cavern offer a comfortable, ambient background noise for him to close his eyes and focus on instead. Beyond that he can pick out the splash of fish coming up to inspect the water’s surface and the continual dripping of water spray on rocks. He turns his head just enough to peek over at Malroth, and his ear fills with the hollow sounds of water and tiny bubbles.

Malroth has sprawled out to float on his back too, but he looks uncannily like a giant starfish. _He took his hair tie out_ , Zach finally realizes. Malroth’s hair is spread out like an inky fan around him, and his perpetual cowlicks – resembling a pair of large, dorky horns – are soaked enough from the water that they finally lie flat against his head. He turns his head to look over at Zach, and his pointed ear looks even bigger than usual without his hair resting behind it. His smile glows in the dim light of the cave, and Zach’s heart skips a beat.

He was being so stupid, he realizes, skipping the pool every day out of the fear that he would be awkward around Malroth if he were in a swimsuit. But the second that they had jumped in the water and started horsing around like they always do, all of those strange fears completely vanished. He hates that it's his own fault that he’s been missing out on time to hang with his best friend—and all because he can’t keep his eyes to himself. It’s easy enough to push down his feelings when they’re both sweating and griping under the hot sun or in the midst of a blood-pounding battle, but now that they’re here floating in relative silence with no distractions, Zach’s head is swimming with guilt. Malroth doesn’t deserve to feel like Zach has better things to do than spend time with him. It’s not like he’s the one causing misunderstandings by trying not to stare at his best friend in a skimpy swimsuit.

Zach smiles back at Malroth weakly and turns his head eyes back to the ceiling. He sighs quietly when he hears Malroth turn away too. _I really need to get ahold of myself_ , he thinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured out that the swimsuits in-game are likely based off of (or ARE) Etchū fundoshi, a type of Japanese underwear/swimsuit. I looked up tying videos, so I hope it was understandable the way I wrote it!
> 
> Chapter 3 following shortly!


	3. Chapter 3

** Malroth **

Malroth had been reluctant to ditch the pool earlier in the evening, but he’s really glad that he did. Sitting here—or floating, really—with Zach, just the two of them...well. He can drink at the pool and trash the guys at cards any day he wants to, but this feels special. It’s been a while since the two of them have made time to hang out together without anyone else tagging along, and Malroth didn’t realize how much he was truly missing it until now. It feels different without weapons or tools in hand, no monsters to bash or buildings to cobble together or friends to run errands for. But not in a bad way.

The adrenaline that comes from battle is still there as they tussle in the water, and Zach is laughing more now than he ever does when he’s building a new bar or boring old dormitory. And the fact that he has Zach’s full attention on him now—no longer split between helping everyone and their father around town—makes him feel rather pleased. He feels calm for the first time in what feels like weeks, and even though he hates to admit when he’s wrong, this is definitely one of Zach’s better ideas, and he’s glad that he went along with it.

Zach seems a little quiet after their fierce water fight which could be attributed to his wanting to actually relax now, but Malroth isn’t so sure. He had an odd expression when he looked over at Malroth earlier, not quite sad but maybe a little…remorseful? Malroth doesn’t care for it, whatever it was, because that means Zach isn’t smiling anymore. He decides to fix that and flips himself out of his floating position to paddle over to Zach—

—who is now floating face down in the water blowing half-hearted bubbles. Malroth roughly shakes his shoulder hoping to scare his moping mood right out of him and pats Zach’s back when he chokes on water in his surprise. Malroth’s plan seems to work since Zach now looks decidedly less bummed with that scowl on his face.

“Was that really necessary?” he coughs as he wipes his face.

Malroth opens his mouth to respond and then wonders whether that was supposed to be rhetorical. He shrugs and points over at a rocky structure that juts straight up from the water and climbs so high into the air that the top is hidden from their sight in the darkness of the ceiling.

“You wanna go race around that a few times and whoever wins gets to throw the other off of the top?” Malroth rubs his hands together excitedly.

Zach scoffs, a sound of complete disbelief. “Yeah, right. You’re totally faster than me, and you know it. There’s no way I’m racing you just to get thrown off a cliff. How about you go do some laps while I fix my swimsuit. It’s starting to ride up.” He makes a face and starts swimming unhurriedly for the outcrop of smooth rocks ringing the base of the giant rock.

Malroth laughs in understanding and complies. The structure is at least as big around as the Silver Bar, so he loses sight of Zach quickly. As he practices different fancy strokes that he has seen people do in the pool, he admires the multiple waterfalls he passes and wonders if he could rope Zach into a game of jumping down them later. It takes him several minutes to loop back around to where he started, but when he looks up at ledge where he left Zach, he’s no longer there. He frowns and makes his way toward the little ledge of land jutting out from the bottom of the rocky cliffs, not worried quite yet, but it’s only a matter of time before his mind starts running through all of the ways Zach could get himself killed on a giant wet rock. 

“Yo, Zach. Where did you go?” His voice echoes in the creepy emptiness of the cavern. Luckily, he isn’t left hanging long enough for his paranoia to really start ramping up.

Zach’s voice rings out above his head. “Up here!” He sees Zach perched on a ledge several feet up the rocks waving down at him.

“Why the heck did you climb up there?” Malroth pulls himself up onto the ledge and peers up at Zach in confusion. He is inspecting the rock face in front of him and walks around the corner to continue his search for something. Malroth sighs loudly in exasperation. “What are you _doing_?”

Zach’s voice is muffled when he responds. “I’m looking—no, that won’t work—I’m _looking_ for a way up. I see something up there, and I want to check it out.”

“What is it? More rocks? The ceiling?” Malroth asks sarcastically. He huffs and looks for the least slippery way up the rocks to reach Zach. He nearly cuts his hand open when he catches himself after sliding on a wet foothold near the top, but Zach finally rounds the corner again to help him the rest of the way.

He looks back up at the top of the cliff, apparently seeing something that Malroth can’t. “It looked like stonework—like the arch of something big. I found some vines that we can climb up if you want to come with me.” His excited expression slips for a moment as if he’s reconsidering and wondering if perhaps Malroth doesn’t, in fact, want to climb an extremely tall, slippery rock face to find out if there’s actually an even bigger rock at the top.

Fat chance.

“I already tagged along with you to the middle of the mines and ditched a night of drinking myself stupid. Why stop now?” He grins. “Where are the vines?”

Zach’s answering smile makes something warm and bright swell up in his chest.

They round the corner and Zach points at some vines that appear relatively sturdy and slightly drier than the surrounding ones. This side of the cliffs lacks a waterfall, so they don’t have to worry about the spray at least. Malroth starts up a vine, digging his hands into the twisting green, and motions for Zach to follow behind.

Zach makes a disgruntled sound and turns his head away. The tips of his ears are red. Maybe they’re still cold from the water? What a wimp.

“No way,” Zach complains. He shakes himself, as if disturbed by Malroth’s suggestion, and reaches for the vine a few feet over on Malroth’s right. “I don’t want to have to stare up at your ass the whole way. I’ll just climb this one.”

“Hey!” Malroth complains. “You could be staring at way worse things! Like…” He wracks his brain for something really gross. “Like rotting scorpion guts,” _or even worse_ , “Or Magrog’s hairy ass.”

“Can you _please_ not remind me why I don’t go to the pool?” Zach begs.

“You never actually admitted to anything, you realize?” Malroth reminds him.

Zach grumbles something under his breath that Malroth misses, but he lets it go, and together they climb the cliff carefully. He tries to goad Zach into racing him a few times since he chickened out of doing laps, but the judgmental frown that earns him warns him to give up while he’s still ahead. Malroth’s head crests the final stretch of the cliff, and his breath catches in his throat.

Everything up here _glows_.

The cliff plateaus before him, and as he pulls himself up to crouch on the edge with muscles burning pleasantly from the strenuous climb, he takes in the sheer number of berries that litter the small plateau. They look strikingly similar to the ones growing wild around the rest of the mines, but where those are a hearty pink, the ones sprawling out over the clifftop are as bright and blue as the lake water and glow like tiny stars. The vines they hang from, ripe and plump, have taken over nearly the entire area as well as a massive stone carving smack dab in the middle.

That must be what Zach had seen from the ground. It’s actually impressive that he was able to see anything from so far away because Malroth is having trouble making out much of anything through the eerie dark that pervades the spaces between the glow of the berries, which grow in tight bunches and peek out from under thick leaves. He hesitates to take a step forward for fear of trampling all over perfectly good fruit or jabbing his heel on a well-hidden rock.

Zach gasps behind him, and Malroth turns to see an expression of such raw amazement and wonder splayed across his face that Malroth’s breath catches a second time.

His face, his hair, every inch of his skin is lit up with a faint blue glow, and Malroth can’t help but to stare. He’s so used to Zach hiding himself behind layer upon ridiculous layer of clothing that it throws him to see so much of him at once like this—hair dark and dripping down the pale expanse of his bare shoulders, no massive mallet to draw eyes away from him and towards his work. He looks so small and unassuming standing before the colossal statue ahead of them, but Malroth notices that his earlier awkwardness over dressing down has vanished in the wake of a new discovery.

Zach, apparently uninterested in—or perhaps just unaware of—how the light is playing across his skin and reflecting softly in his eyes, doesn’t hesitate to pick his way impulsively through the lush plant growth and heads straight for the fountain, which, of course that’s what he’s focused on. They discover a veritable jungle of _glowing_ blue fruit, and Zach heads right for the big rock that also happens to be there. Malroth rolls his eyes fondly and follows more carefully.

Zach approaches the towering stonework with something close to reverence, and Malroth feels his face split into a smile. The thing really is enormous. Now that he’s looking more closely, he can make out more details of the stone cast in a faint glow. It’s hard to observe it in its entirety since part of it towers at least over fifteen feet above their heads, but berry vines crisscross the stone all the way from top to bottom and light it up in hazy patches. His eyes follow the long stretch of a scaled tail that circles around a stone depression in the middle, and he realizes with surprise that he’s looking at a giant serpentine fountain.

Its winding tail makes up the rim of the fountain and leads up to a head that towers above them both. The face is drawn into a vicious hiss with fangs as long as Malroth’s arm. He squints and notices a rather inconspicuous hole in the back of its mouth sitting right above the start of its long, forked tongue. He turns to Zach for an explanation, but his friend seems to be in a world of his own, running his hands along the body of the serpent in wonder. He’s hunched over the fountain rim, closely inspecting the handiwork of whichever stonemason crafted this absolute behemoth. The blue glow under his hands curves along the edges of his jaw and spreads over his cheeks, softening his features into something almost delicate.

“Can you imagine how long this must have taken to sculpt?” Zach wonders aloud. “Look at the scales. They’re so _intricate_. I bet they cover the whole thing.” He looks up at the serpent’s head and starts making his way toward it, still trailing his hands over the fountain as he walks. But Malroth isn’t looking at the fountain. He’s watching Zach’s pale hands as they skim over the stone with open admiration, as they trace the rounded edges of each scale they pass as if to memorize the shape and form by touch alone. The blue glow reflects prettily off of his fingernails, still shiny from the lake water.

Zach’s hands have held his attention since the day they first met. Everything about him is remarkably adaptable. Capable. But his hands more so than anything else. Holding a sword, they brim with steely strength. Curled around his trusty hammer, they hold the promise of fantastic creation. When his fingers splay open for a hearty high five, his hand gives Malroth a special fiery drive to keep going, keep smashing, keep fighting, keep smiling. He wonders offhandedly what it would be like to have Zach’s hands touch and trace him just like they delicately study the fountain. To have his undivided attention—that keen look in his eyes focused on Malroth like a brand new blueprint.

“Are you even listening?” Zach sounds amused and farther away now as Malroth drags himself out of his distracting thoughts.

“Uh, yeah,” Malroth bluffs as he quickly catches up. “You were blabbing about how in love with the fountain you are. Put me right to sleep.” He fakes a big yawn and laughs when Zach swats at his shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah. You just have no appreciation for the finer things in life.” Zach sighs dramatically. And maybe he’s right. Malroth likes to think he’s a simple man – not a simpleton, as Lulu puts it, but a man who knows what he likes and isn’t fussed about whether or not other people consider them worthwhile. So what if the things he appreciates most are roughhousing, booze, and his best friend? Scaly stonework is boring anyway. He’ll deal with it since Zach obviously enjoys it, but it doesn’t really matter to him one way or the other since Zach isn’t the one who made it.

Zach peers more closely at the fierce slant of the serpent’s shadowy open maw and apparently notices the same hole that Malroth saw earlier because he starts off a lengthy speculation on how the snake’s head most likely used to spit water down into the fountain bowl and theorizes about why it longer does. Since he’s not actively looking at Malroth while he explains, Malroth takes his chance to escape and scrambles as quietly as he is able to over the rim of the fountain and down into the bowl. So much for caring about rocks for Zach’s sake. He can only listen to so many technical explanations that make his head spin. He’d rather get a closer look at the fountain bowl full of berries.

The bowl is shallow, relatively speaking, considering the ridiculously tall serpent looming above his head. The rim comes up to around shoulder-level, and the walls are draped with hanging vines laden down with berries that remind him of the strings of festive bunting everyone made back in Furrowfield. The walls also lack any sign of a recent water level. In fact, the entire fountain is bone dry, and the overgrown, lush vines have managed to wedge themselves into the floor and walls and have created massive cracks that would render the fountain useless if it still held any water. He wonders offhandedly if the vines are drawing their water from the same source that the fountain used to.

He inspects one of the larger cracks on the ground and sticks his finger into it to see how deep it goes. His finger comes back covered in powdery dust up to the second knuckle. It’s likely that this fountain has been dry since the mines became inoperable. When he sets his foot down next, he feels a wet pop and squelch under his sole and grimaces. He lifts it up to see sticky blue goop dripping down his heel and shakes it off in mild irritation. He wonders if these berries taste at all like the pink ones. They sure make a mess the same way.

He bends down and plucks a few from the vine, looking them over closely for signs of bugs or dirt. Not that he cares, but the last time Zach saw him bite into a raw vegetable without cleaning it first, he lectured Malroth on the importance of washing off produce before stuffing it in his mouth, and Malroth will do literally anything to avoid sitting through that snooze fest again.

The flavor of the berries washes over his tongue in sweet and sour bursts. They are far from overly sweet like the pink variety, and as they hit the back of his tongue, his lips pinch at the sour zing. He picks a few more and squeezes one between his thumb and forefinger to see its gooey insides. He quickly sucks up the berry juice before it can run too far down his wrist and tosses the pulpy skin into his mouth when he finds nothing unusual.

Then he notices that the juice trail hasn’t disappeared. The juice itself is gone, but the line where it ran down the side of his hand and onto his wrist glows with a faint blue sheen. He rubs at it curiously and discovers that it paints his fingertip the same shade. His eyes widen, and he pops another berry, dripping the juice carefully onto his hand and licking it up again. Little blue spots are left behind.

He grins. Does it only work on skin?

He gathers several more berries and pops each one, experimentally dripping them over ivy and watching as the droplets roll off the leaves and onto the dusty fountain floor, leaving little blue trails in their wake. He pauses in consideration before sticking his tongue out. His eyes cross as he looks down hopefully. His tongue is a vivid, luminous blue, and he laughs in delight.

Zach definitely needs to try these. Not only will he be impressed by the potential to make things glow for the fun of it, but he’s also a huge weenie when it comes to sour foods, and Malroth absolutely wants to watch him squirm and make funny faces.

“Hey, builder-brain!” he shouts in the direction of the serpent. “Get down here and try some of these berries!”

He thinks Zach might be ignoring him for a long minute because he gets no response and has completely lost sight of Zach’s messy mop of blonde hair in the limited light, but then he hears a few pebbles hitting the ground as Zach slides down the neck of the serpent. He hits the ground hard with his bare feet and winces before gingerly hobbling over to the fountain bowl’s edge.

“Why are you down there?” He spies Malroth’s glowing hand and asks, disturbed, “And why is your hand blue? And…glowing? What did you mess with, Malroth?”

Malroth doesn’t like his accusing tone and decides to ignore it completely. It’s not like he’s the one getting into trouble this time. “Never mind that. Why were _you_ fifteen feet in the air? What if you’d slipped?”

“Nah, I didn’t make it the whole way up,” Zach says, waving his hand casually, like that makes it any better. Maybe to him it does. Crazy builder. His lack of self-preservation is appalling. “I was trying to get a better look at the fin on its back. It stretches down from the head to the tail, but it’s easier to see the detail on the bigger sections higher up since it’s so dark here.”

He keeps talking as he climbs over the stone snake tail and slides down into the fountain bowl. “What did you yell at me?”

Malroth presents his handful of shining berries to Zach and jiggles them invitingly as he gets near. “Here, you have to try these. Look what they did to my tongue!” He sticks his tongue out and shows off the rather impressive hue. Zach definitely looks impressed. And vaguely wary.

“Are you sure those aren’t poisonous?”

“What are you, a chicken?” Malroth smirks, knowing it’ll rile him up for sure. Zach’s cheeks puff out a little in irritation, and his eyebrows take on a determined slant. Malroth tosses him a few of the berries without a word, and he watches with bated breath for the look on Zach’s face when he gets a mouthful of sour juice.

As Zach brings the berries to his mouth, Malroth notices something. He holds up a berry where he can see it side by side with Zach’s face from a distance and exclaims in sudden realization, “Hey, these berries look just like your eyes!”

Wow, they must be really sour because Zach looks like he’s choking on them.

Malroth cackles with glee. “Ha! I knew you would be a huge wimp if they were sour!”

Zach sputters, blue staining his lips with spittle. “That’s not—you can’t just—!” He spits out a few more broken off words but can’t manage to form a whole sentence. His face is getting rather pink, even in the dim glow from the berries around them, so Malroth decides to let up on the teasing before he dies of embarrassment.

“Why do you think these glow anyway? The pink ones don’t.” He brings the berry close to his face and squints at it suspiciously before shrugging and popping it in his mouth. If they were actually poisonous, he’d already be dead, right? Maybe they’re just slow-acting, and he’ll owe Zach an apology later. Oh well.

Zach wipes his mouth of juice droplets, which leaves behind freckled blue spots and a shimmery smear on the back of his hand, before answering. “You mean the vineapples? I think this variety is probably just bioluminescent.”

“Bio-whata?” Malroth keeps listening as he starts clearing a small space on the ground of vines.

Zach tilts his head and tracks Malroth’s movements with an expression of vague confusion and interest as he repeats, “Bioluminescent. It’s when plants or animals glow in dark places.”

“Oh, so you think if we brought some of these back to town, they would stop glowing?” He starts grabbing all of the berries around him that he can reach and gestures for Zach to do the same. Zach shoots him a weird look but goes along with it without complaint.

“I mean, probably. But if we use them to make Digger’s Jigger like the vineapples, they could make a really awesome drink to serve at night. Den would probably shit himself if he had glowing drinks to serve at the bar.”

Malroth laughs at that. He leans back from his handiwork on the floor so Zach can see. He had squashed more berries into his palm and used the liquid to finger paint the shape of Zach’s name on the dusty floor. “Look! I wrote your name.”

He smiles proudly at how the letters shine on the floor in all of their glowing, juicy glory. The edges of the letters are a bit clumpy from the mixture of dust and juice, but he feels like he just created something that might endure longer than the split second it takes him to destroy it again. “I don’t know how long it’ll last for, but wouldn’t it be cool if someone else found it someday and knew you were here?”

Zach’s eyes are surprisingly soft when he sees his name lighting up the fountain floor in Malroth’s shaky scrawl. “Well, if it does last that long, then they’ll know we were _both_ here.” Then he crouches down with Malroth—shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee—and lets him watch as he dips his finger into the juice in still cupped in Malroth’s palm and carefully paints his friend’s name right below his own. The silence wraps around them softly like a silky cocoon, and it makes Malroth want to scoot even closer just to hear the soft sound of Zach’s breathing. But Malroth feels as if one wrong sound could shatter whatever this is floating around them.

When Zach is done writing, he seems to hesitate for a brief moment before adding a plus sign between their names.

_Zach_

_+_

_Malroth_

Malroth likes it.

He likes it a lot.

Now whoever sees it, assuming that it even lasts longer than a few hours, will know that they were there together—that they had discovered this amazing place at the same time, side by side, and left a mark of their shared existence behind. It’s a soothing reminder that no matter where they go, they’re a duo—two halves of the perfect high five.

But all of that would sound way too mushy and awkward hanging in the air between them in the soft, dark silence, so instead he simply says, “It’s perfect.”

Zach smiles back at him, eyes suspiciously shiny, and coughs a few times before loudly announcing, “I really wish I had my book with me so I could sketch that fountain. I’d love to make a smaller one just like it for the Green Gardens. It would look so cool in the lake where we all fought that giant crab.”

He looks kind of bummed about it, so Malroth offers, “We should come back then. Before we go back to our island. Ya know, to see if our names are still here.” He smiles and nudges Zach’s shoulder. “And I guess we could make some time to doodle your little fountain, too. Might help to bring more torches next time though.”

Zach laughs agreeably before falling silent again. He scratches the back of his neck and stares down at the ground, shooting a quick glance at Malroth from under his eyelashes before blinking away again. “So, you’d really wanna come back? You wouldn’t rather be hanging out at the pool than down here in a dingy cave? I don’t want you to feel like you have to so that I don’t feel bad or anything.”

Malroth frowns to think that Zach is worried that he would rather spend time with other people over his best friend. Sure, it’s fun to hang out with the miners because they don’t mind rough housing with him, but it sounds like Zach didn’t expect him to want to hang out at all when he asked.

Zach has always been down on himself in subtle ways since the day the met. He’s never made his nervous thoughts anyone else’s problem to handle and always keeps them on pretty tight lockdown. Malroth hates it.

He hates that he can’t just knock Zach’s self-doubt right out of his overthinking little head and shove some sense right back in to take its place. It’s all just so...irrational to Malroth. He can’t figure out where Zach’s fears come from. He’s kind and hardworking and more intelligent than Malroth will probably be fifty years from now. His skill as a builder grows exponentially each day, like a flower unfurling its bright petals under the sun and slowly overtaking an arid garden. He glows like gold under Malroth’s watchful eyes....so why can’t he see that himself?

Malroth knows he can’t force Zach to see things his way—he’s much too hardheaded for that—but maybe he can start trying harder to be more convincing in case he decides to stop being a brat and listen for once.

He pulls Zach to his feet and steers them both up and out of the fountain as he firmly reassures him, “I mean, I like the pool a lot too, but I didn’t come down here because I like _caves_. I came because you were gonna be here. If you don’t like the pool, then we can just come swim here instead. As long as you’re there, I’m sure I’ll have fun no matter where we go.”

Zach tenses up next to him as they walk back to the edge of the plateau, but he doesn’t respond, so Malroth assumes that he’s still turning over worries in that thick head of his. He scans the far corners of the lake, determined to find something to distract Zach with again. He’s about to give it up for a loss and admit that there’s likely nothing else hidden away in here that could catch Zach’s interest like a damn fifteen foot piece of serpentine architecture before his eyes catch on a familiar glow under the water on the far cavern wall. He nearly missed it from so far away since Zach’s torches don’t reach around the lake that far, but that might be the only reason he actually did notice the berries.

No, those can’t be berries. They look like they’re _moving_.

He pokes Zach in the side where Malroth knows that he’s ticklish, and he blocks the instinctual slap Zach aims back at him. “Dude, _what_?”

“Look.” Malroth points down at the back of the cavern where he had just seen the blue glow. Zach squints hard, but whatever had been there before is gone now. “There was something glowing and moving under the water over there,” he explains. “Come on, let’s go check it out!”

“And what if it’s a big fish that wants to eat you for breakfast?” Zach quips back wryly.

“Then joke’s on the fish. I haven’t had dinner yet, and I’m hungry!” He chomps his teeth a few times and bares them in a fierce smile.

He revels in Zach’s laughter as he bumps shoulders with Malroth and tells him, “Your eyes are way too big for your stomach, Malroth.”

Malroth peers down into the water far below them and shoots Zach a challenging look. “…Bet you won’t jump down the waterfall with me.”

Zach scoffs. “You can’t just goad me into doing stupid shit by calling me a chicken every time. Just because I use my brain doesn’t mean I’m a coward.” He rests a hand on his hip and peeks down at the lake. _Almost have him,_ Malroth thinks.

Malroth hums in faux consideration and taps his chin. “Hmm...sounds like something a _coward_ would say.” Zach throws him a nasty glare but still hesitates to claim that he’s going to climb back down the way he came up. Malroth just waits him out.

His patience pays off when Zach groans a few long seconds later in irritated defeat and throws his hands up. “Fine! Let’s jump down the waterfall. But if I end up almost drowning and need CPR, just drag my unconscious body to the heal slime that hangs around here. I don’t trust you not to accidentally kill me. You might crack all of my ribs or something...” he shakes his head and shivers.

Malroth frowns. That was a lot of gibberish to digest all at once. “What’s CPR?”

“Just a way to help someone start breathing again if they’re choking or can’t get air,” Zach responds offhandedly.

Malroth has never heard of that. He’s seen the guys smack each other on the backs when their drinks go down the wrong pipe, but there’s another way to do it too? Zach has never choked on his drinks, but Malroth knows he would get in a sour mood if anyone tried to smack him. Maybe Malroth can learn this way in case Zach ever manages to get more of his drink down his throat than down his front when he’s drunk.

Zach is paying more attention to the water below them than Malroth himself as he speaks next, so maybe that’s why he seems so surprised when Malroth demands, “Show me then!”

“Wha—” Zach almost trips on the edge of the cliff when he turns around suddenly with eyes as wide as saucers. Malroth catches his arm and pulls him back to safety, and they stand awkwardly in each other’s space as Malroth asks again.

“Show me how to do this CPR thing. What if someone strangles your skinny little neck when you’re being a pain in the ass one day and you can’t breathe? Or you choke on your drink when Babs brings you food at the bar? I could do something other than smash for once! C’mon, just show me!”

Zach’s face, still unusually close to his own, flies through a fit of emotions as Malroth speaks. Annoyance, then embarrassment, and finally an uncharacteristic blankness that Malroth rarely sees and never likes. Zach only ever slaps that face on when he’s hiding something. But Zach can’t hide secrets for shit. From him at least. 

“Look,” Zach starts calmly. Too calmly going by how he slowly backs up and won’t make eye contact. “It’s nothing. Forget about it.”

“Doesn’t sound like nothing,” Malroth smirks.

He doesn’t get the chance to follow up with a creative threat or attempt at blackmail because Zach turns away suddenly and heads right for the waterfall without another word. Malroth jolts and hurries after him. “Hey, you didn’t answer me! Come back here you coward!” He doesn’t even have to push Zach off the precipice this time around. He doesn’t need any prompting whatsoever to throw himself from the top of the cliff and into the freezing waters far below them.

 _Is it_ that _bad that Zach doesn’t want to show him or even explain out loud?_ he wonders. It’s gotta be a juicy answer if Zach is actually running away.

Too bad that Malroth is the faster swimmer.

He leaps from the cliff and relishes the spike of adrenaline in his blood as he races toward the lake surrounded by a deluge of icy water and the rush of cool wind on his skin. He hits the lake’s surface like a wrecking ball and shivers as he splashes away from the pounding waterfall behind him. It’s hard to see much in the dark this far back in the cavern, but he sees a faint reflection of light from a distant torch shine off of Zach’s fair hair a handful of feet in front of him. Moving swiftly away from him, actually.

 _Nice try, buddy,_ he thinks. He shouts a sudden war cry that echoes amazingly around them, bouncing off of every wall and resounding so loudly in the massive cavern that it sounds as if twenty Malroths are about to pursue Zach on a merciless wild hunt. He hears a yelp from Zach’s direction, and the sound of splashing increases. Malroth races after him, intent on finally getting some answers tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, about the CPR thing: I kind of fought with myself about including that for a long time because it seems so modern??? But the DQ world has always had this strange sense of being in a very unspecified time period that refuses to make any sort of real-world sense (no zipper on the builder's pants, but a flying air craft?? C'mon!) So I was like, what, do normal people who can't use zing or heal or w/e just let someone DIE??? Nah, they definitely have something like CPR!! Anyway, there's me talking it out so I don't feel silly about mentioning CPR in a damn kissing ficXD


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, A/N before and after this chapter because I need to apologize to you poor saps in TWO placesXD There is kissing in this chapter, nay, MAKING OUT if I want to exaggerate my skill a little. Let me level with you all: I have never kissed anyone in my goddamn life. I never will because the thought of letting someone else put their mouth anywhere near mine makes me want to hurl. But when I'm not part of the equation, kissing sounds very romantic and lovely!! I just have never experienced it myself, so I'm so, SO sorry if my kissing scene is terrible;-; Skim it if you need to, I seriously won't judge bc I have no way to tell if I wrote it well! Nothing to compare it to!! I have destroyed my reputation (aka my internet history) by googling "How to kiss" AKDSAHFLKDSFHLD no more questions at this time, thank you

** Zach **

Zach is Panicking. Capital P. If he has to explain to Malroth why he can’t handle his best friend breathing him back to life and putting his hands all over his chest, he’s pretty sure he’s going to have to climb back up to the plateau and throw himself off again—this time just aiming for some rocks. He picks up the pace, swimming like he’s never swam before—like a swarm of vicious mermen is coming after him intent on having him for an evening snack.

That thought doesn’t inspire him like it should when his heart insists that admitting his feelings still scares him more than facing off against a horde of horrifying monsters.

He beats Malroth to the back of the cave— _all of that wet hair is probably weighing him down_ , he thinks smugly—but immediately forgets the reason for their mad dash when he sees what’s lurking under the water.

Dozens of little fish with fanned out fins that ripple like curtains in a calm breeze flutter around his ankles serenely. Every scale shimmers, and each fin emits a wavering blue glow that distinctly reminds Zach of the blue vineapples. “Hmm,” he mumbles as he treads water and watches the fish flit around his toes, “maybe we can call them shineapples since they glow?”

He’s startled out of his berry reverie when he feels cold, wet hands grip his shoulders suddenly. Ah, fuck.

“Could you stop running for, like, two seconds and—” Just as quickly as he grabbed on, Malroth lets go and completely ignores him to get a good look at the mysterious glowing fish. “Hey, it really was fish! Good guess, Zach.”

He tries to calm his racing heartbeat. “What else would it be? A tiny sea monster?” Ugh, his voice sounds tight even to his own ears.

“Man, I wish.” Malroth laughs. “Then we wouldn’t have to convince Dougie to believe in a fake one. We could just throw it at him and watch it chomp his toes.”

Zach sees Malroth’s eyes dart around in the faint light from under the water before he says, “Hey, look down there.” Malroth moves to point under the water and manages to splash them both right in the face in the process.

Zach wipes his face and flicks the water at Malroth as payback. “I only see fish.”

“Yeah but look at where they’re all going.” Zach tries to peer closer, but the ripples from them treading water disrupts his vision. He takes a quick breath and ducks his face under. The few fish closest to him dart away and head straight for the cave wall. Except. They keep going. He pops his head above the water for air and to check whether or not he’s crazy. Is he farther away from it than he thought?

Malroth seems to have a different idea. “I’ll bet you there’s a secret cave under the water where those fish are headed. Come on, it’ll be just like when we dove into the bog to get the fresh water for the Deitree.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me. I had mud up my nose for a week.” Zach shivers at the memory.

Malroth hums then, and it sounds especially mischievous. “You know...this would be a good time for me to know CPR....just in case the tunnel is too long for you to hold your breath through.”

Zach scowls at him, and thanks the heavens that the cave is far too dark where they are for Malroth to see the heat taking over his face. “You idiot. We’d _both_ be out of air. And underwater.”

“Alright, alright, don’t get your swimsuit in a bunch. I guess you’ll just have to hope for the best then! You think you can manage to make it to the other end?”

Zach is about to remind him that they have no idea if there actually is anything on the other end, they don’t know how long the tunnel is, and they likely won’t be able to see for shit down there, but Malroth seems to already know that he’s going to follow him regardless because he doesn’t wait around. He takes a comically huge breath and dives under the lake.

Zach rolls his eyes and sighs. How did this turn into him letting Malroth lead him into dangerous and stupid and _fun_ stuff?

Like that’s any different than normal.

The tunnel is pitch black save for the sparse glowing fish floating yards in front of him. He sees a flash of Malroth’s leg and knows he isn’t far away, but the walls are wide enough that his fingers never touch, and he feels as if he’s stranded in the darkness with no way out, the light always just out of reach. The seconds stretch endlessly, and just as his lungs begin to ache and he starts to get a little worried, he feels something take hold of his hand and pull him up. His head breaks the water, and he gulps the air in greedily as Malroth steadies him. He blinks water out of his eyes and lets them adjust to the low light.

“Hah! I knew there would be something cool down here,” Malroth boasts.

Zach doesn’t reply in favor of taking in their impressive new surroundings.

The cave is surprisingly small and cozy. There is no visible dry land above the water for them to climb onto, so they stand in a shallow depression. The water comes up to their chests and is oddly warm. The rest of the underground lake is chilly and refreshing, and Zach didn’t notice when it eased into a comfortable temperature in the tunnel. It’s not quite a hot spring, but he could relax here for hours, easily. He wonders if this section is heated from underground somehow. Maybe there’s some type of heat source below them. Like lava.

He snorts quietly.

As if.

Spread sparsely along the walls and hanging from the ceiling are even more berry-laden vines, turning the tiny cave into a secret glowing garden. Malroth looks pleased about this and has already moved away to start picking a handful. Zach’s thoughts continue to churn uneasily as he searches for somewhere to sit. The room is so dark, even with the berries, that it’s easy to watch more fish flock to the shallow pool as he hops up onto a rocky ledge jutting out a few feet from the wall. The water barely reaches his thighs now, lapping gently at his legs as he sighs unhappily and leans back on his hands to stare up at the ceiling. He listens to the occasional ripple of curious fish and dripping stalactites as he tries to parse through his worries.

Tonight has been more fun than he had hoped for, but he still can’t help but feel like a bit of an ass. Malroth was so willing to go along with his plan to hang out, has been nothing but supportive the entire time, really, and Zach had let himself forget how easy it is to just be around his best friend. He’s been avoiding simple questions because he can’t stop getting hung up on stupid stuff. He even had to put some distance between the two of them at the fountain because his eyes kept sliding over to admire how beautiful Malroth looked surrounded by the soft glow of the berries. Then Malroth had compared his eyes to shimmering fruit and reassured him in an oddly sweet way that he always wanted to hang out together no matter where they are. Even his curiosity about CPR sounded like he only had Zach in mind, for goddess’ sake.

He’s let himself get overwhelmed by Malroth just being a wonderful, and admittedly attractive, best friend and has thrown a wrench into the fun and worry-free evening he had planned for them. Even now, as Malroth happily collects a heaping handful of berries for them to share, Zach is sitting by himself and getting bogged down by his own thoughts. But he feels like he’s being eaten from the inside out by guilt. He could have had this from the beginning if he had just tried to ignore his dumb crush a bit harder. Malroth doesn’t deserve Zach getting all weird around him because he enjoys his smile…and his muscles.

“Hey, Zach?” Malroth’s voice draws him out of his heavy thoughts. He’s sitting next to Zach now, berries in a glowing pile on his palm, and he offers his hand out to Zach. His smile is small, and his eyebrows are sloped in a way that Zach rarely witnesses. He’s worried, Zach realizes. _Goddess, I really am a terrible best friend._

He takes a few berries without complaint as an apology and forces himself not to make a face or squirm as the sour burst of juice in his mouth makes his gums tingle and ache. A fish swims up close, docile and curious, and Zach tosses it a berry. He’s surprised when it dives right for it in a flutter of bright, colorful fins, and the commotion lures several more fish in for a treat. Malroth makes a delighted sound beside him and tosses a few of his own berries into the gathering of fish to rile them up. They each toss a few more before leaning back and watching with fascination as the fish explore the shallow waters looking around hopefully for more food.

“Umm…” Malroth mumbles. Zach looks over at him, but he doesn’t seem to want to meet his eyes. “I wanted to say sorry for earlier. I didn’t mean to make you feel weird about the CPR thing. I know I can be a bit of a bully sometimes, but I don’t want to force you to explain something you don’t want to. I just...you’ve been avoiding answering things, and I thought maybe you think I’ll tease you or something—”

Zach can’t breathe. This isn’t like Malroth. He should be bugging Zach for more answers with playful threats. Whatever uncomfortable brand of vulnerable he’s forcing himself to be tells Zach that he has _really_ messed up. “Don’t apologize—” he says, feeling strangled.

Malroth forges on. “And I know I do tease you sometimes, but I don’t mean it. We’re best friends, so I know I can trust you, and I just wanted to make sure that you know you can trust me too. You don’t have to tell me—”

Oh, fuck. Fuck, fuck, he’s screwed everything to all hell, hasn’t he? He needs to say something, _anything_ , to make sure that Malroth stops blaming himself when it’s really all Zach’s fault.

“It’s like kissing,” he blurts out.

Silence. 

The occasional dripping from their soaked hair and the surrounding stalactites is oppressive in the resounding quiet.

“What’s like kissing?” Malroth’s stare is a steady, weighted thing, like he has caught Zach on the end of a fishing line and is just waiting for him to reel himself in.

Zach takes in an unsteady breath and tries to think of how to explain this without giving his feelings away.

“CPR. It’s like kissing. Sort of. I mean, it’s also called mouth-to-mouth because you have to breathe into someone’s mouth to keep them breathing if they can’t do it themselves or to get water out of their lungs.” He’s rambling but he doesn’t know how to make himself _stop_. “And you’re supposed to push on their chest to keep their heart beating. And I know I brought it up, but I was worried I was being too weird, so—”

“Whoa, wait, you can bring someone back to life with a _kiss_?” Malroth interrupts. “Why did no one tell me about that one?! They told me all about soppy old love, but no one thought to mention kisses could heal people? And I could totally use chest-crushing to fight monsters. CPR sounds super cool! Why did you think you were being weird?” Malroth looks so outright confused that Zach equally wants to laugh over his misconceptions and shrivel up at the thought of sorting them out.

“I mean, the chest-crushing thing isn’t weird I guess—even though you’re kind of getting the wrong idea about that—it was more about the, uh…” He can’t say it. How the hell is he supposed to admit to Malroth—who is still eating berries and slowly turning his mouth bright blue, sitting next to him with the utmost trust in Zach to explain things that he doesn’t understand—that he really fucking wants to kiss him? That wouldn’t be fair to him. He only recently started learning about love and all that it entails, and there’s no way in hell Zach is going to throw his own feelings on top of that confusing pile and put his best friend into a corner.

“Oh, the kissing thing, then,” Malroth guesses simply. “What, did you think my mouth would be all sour?” He makes an exaggerated kissy face at Zach. “You’ve eaten a few berries yourself, so you probably wouldn’t have even noticed if that’s what you were worried about. But it’s not like I would ever let you get hurt bad enough to need mouth to mouth anyway. I’ll always be there to watch your back. You know that, right?”

Zach can feel his face growing shades darker in the dwindling light from Malroth’s berry pile. How does Malroth always confess such personal and painfully touching things so casually? It really does horrible things to Zach’s heart. He wants to answer, to say something back, to return every sweet sentiment Malroth has shared with him tonight, but he knows if he opens his mouth all that will come rushing out is every single overwhelming feeling he’s kept suppressed until now. He just nods and drags his fingers slowly along the water’s surface trying to focus on their movement rather than his pounding heart and fiery face.

He can still feel Malroth’s eyes on him.

Zach hears him pop a few more berries between his teeth. He tries to think of something to say to clear the air and bring back that ever-present sense of familiarity between them when all he’s feeling is distanced right now.

Malroth beats him to it.

“Does this maybe have anything to do with why you actually avoid the pool?” Zach’s hand pauses on the water, and he feels his heart skip a terrifying beat. Malroth continues. “I may be wrong, but I just have this feeling that everything you don’t want to talk about is connected. I just can’t figure out how.”

Zach panics.

He rubs his neck to calm his jittery nerves and tries for a lighthearted tone when he finally responds shakily. “Uh, hey, I’m getting pretty hungry. How about we go and crack open that picnic basket—”

“Why won’t you talk to me?!” Malroth angrily smacks his hands against the water spilling his remaining berries, and the light quickly dims even further as the few fish left in the shallow waters snatch them up.

Zach looks at him in shock.

But Malroth isn’t finished yet. “You’ve got that stupid fucking face on again, like you know something I don’t and think you can’t tell me! Do you really not trust me?” His face is swiftly falling from the high of anger to frustrated, desperate confusion and no small amount of hurt. Zach has screwed this all up so magnificently. By trying to constantly beat around the bush and dodge his honest feelings, he only dug a deep hole and threw Malroth into it instead of himself. Maybe it’ll make everything unbearably awkward, and Malroth won’t want to be around him much anymore, but at least he won’t think it’s his own fault.

“I don’t trust _myself_.” His voice comes out a sad, small contrast to Malroth’s ringing shout. It leaves them both floating in a tense silence. He’s so used to having such an easy camaraderie with Malroth that now they’re at odds, he feels deeply off balance. Malroth doesn’t respond, though Zach can tell that he’s dying to grill him for more.

His patience just makes Zach feel even worse.

“I don’t want you to apologize for anything because you haven’t done anything wrong. That’s all on me.” He looks down at his legs, fingers digging into the edge of the rocky shelf under him. “I don’t go to the pool because I don’t want to be awkward around _you_. Not girls. And not other guys,” he clarifies before Malroth can ask. “I panicked when you asked about CPR because all I could think of was what it would be like to…”

He feels his eyes start to well up with frustrated tears, and he pulls his knees close to his chest in a meager effort at comforting himself. His chest feels like it’s been flayed and left gaping open to anyone who wants to poke and prod at his heart. The urge to curl into a miserable ball presses at him, and he tries to ignore the endless scenarios flitting through his head where Malroth ditches him for good. He might have thought CPR sounded useful or like some cool battle tactic, but Zach wouldn’t blame him if he were uncomfortable with the idea of locking lips with his best friend romantically.

“ _To kiss me._ ” Malroth’s voice is overflowing with sudden, breathless realization. He sounds like an epiphany just grew arms, beat him over the head, and left him completely dumbstruck. “You haven’t been going to the pool because you want to look at _me_ in a swimsuit.” Malroth reaches out and nudges his shoulder to get him to look over. Zach turns his head enough to get him to let up, but he keeps his eyes lowered and tries not to let his lips tremble. Malroth’s eyebrows draw together when he sees Zach’s face.

“Hey,” Malroth says. His low voice is soothing and so, so gentle as he wipes a careful thumb below Zach’s eye to brush away a tear. “Why are you crying?”

“I’m not crying,” Zach sniffles weakly. “My eyes are just...wet.”

“Yeah,” Malroth chuckles. “That’s how it works, knucklehead.” He drops his hand and instead scoots so close that they’re pressed shoulder to damp shoulder. He refrains from turning their position into a side hug which Zach is grateful for. The tears would really start flowing then. “What’s wrong? You didn’t think I’d be upset, did you?”

Zach coughs wetly and rubs at his eyes, taking a few quick seconds to dredge up some composure. “I just didn’t want to make things weird between us. Best friends aren’t supposed to creep on each other—”

“You’re not creeping on me.” Malroth rolls his eyes. “Leave it to you to get all worked up about thinking I’m hot in a swimsuit.”

Zach squawks and desperately wracks his brain for some kind of defense, but Malroth keeps talking.

“Besides, if you were so determined to not get an eyeful of me, then why did you invite me to go swimming with you alone?” Before Zach can choke out an answer, Malroth’s eyes go wide in realization. “Wait, you totally brought me down here so you could have me in a swimsuit all to yourself! Zach, you dog.” He smirks before bursting into laughter at the look of abject mortification on Zach’s face.

“That’s not why I—!” Zach’s face is so hot he could fry eggs on it. “I figured we would be in the water most of the time, so I wouldn’t have to worry about looking. And it was still pretty dark in some places, so if I did—” He abruptly cuts himself off. There’s no way he’s going to admit aloud to that last bit. He shouldn’t have said so much.

Malroth, just as remarkably observant as ever, finishes his sentence for him. “And if you did, you figured I wouldn’t notice.”

Zach’s solid frown at the water and telling silence is enough of a condemnation.

Malroth snorts. “I could feel your eyes on me even if I couldn’t see them. But it wouldn’t be fair to make you feel bad about it since I was staring too.”

Did he just say…?

Zach sucks in a breath and meets his eyes. Malroth stares back without blinking, eyes sure and steady. “You were staring…at me?”

“Who else would I be looking at? The cave wall? The fish?” Malroth huffs and bumps Zach’s shoulder with his own. “So, we were both staring. That makes it not weird, right?”

Zach laughs for the first time in what feels like hours. He’s been running on high alert, fueled by a flight response that was ready to go off at any second, and he’s finally starting to feel like he can start to relax again. Malroth hasn’t run away yet, and even if he still doesn’t seem to understand exactly what Zach is trying to say, he’s just as dumb and supportive as ever.

“No, it’s definitely still weird. Friends don’t normally stare at each other in skimpy red swimsuits when no one else is looking.”

“But we’re definitely friends, and we were definitely both staring. So what if it isn’t _normal_? What does that matter anyway? Besides, you look really nice in yours. Especially by the glowing berries. Why would I not want to look?” The thick brushstroke of his dark eyebrow crooks upward. It’s the same eyebrow he always uses when Zach is being particularly hardheaded.

Zach pushes Malroth’s newest admission to the backburner with no small amount of difficulty to focus on the real problem here. “I distinctly remember you saying earlier that you would judge me if I liked to look at girls in their swimsuits because you didn’t get what was so special about it. I’m sensing some double standards here.”

“But it’s different when it’s you.” Malroth sounds so sure of himself and looks so baffled by Zach’s apparent lack of understanding that Zach feels like he’s two seconds from bursting. “And I don’t mind you looking at _me_. I like you looking at me.”

Malroth tilts his head back and shakes his wet hair before squeezing down the length of it with his hands to ring it out. He’s the perfect picture of calm and relaxed. Several thick strands of his hair stick damply to Zach’s arm when he lets it fall to rest against his back again. Zach doesn’t know what to say or how to redirect the conversation back to comfortable waters. He doesn’t know that he even wants to. A sliver of hope has lodged itself in his chest, into that previously raw and vulnerable place he wanted to hide away so desperately, and he feels like he’s perched on the edge of a precipice trying to decide whether to throw himself into unknown depths or retreat to the sandy shore.

Leave it to Malroth to push him.

“So, if it’s not normal for friends to stare at each other half-naked, does that make us something else?” He has turned himself around to pluck the few remaining berries along the wall behind them both, no longer looking at Zach, but his voice is so openly curious that Zach knows he’s still listening.

If only Zach could figure out how to answer that absolute bombshell of a question.

“Like what?” he hedges.

“I dunno.” Malroth shrugs. “When I asked everyone around town about love and relationships, I learned about different kinds. I know friends are usually platonic, but if we aren’t doing what friends do, are we romantic instead?” He’s done picking berries, but now he’s just looking down at the meager pile in his hand instead of looking back at Zach.

He steels himself for the question of the night. “Do you want us to be romantic?” His fingers dig even harder into the rock under him as he waits with bated breath for some kind of denial.

Malroth hums and rolls the berries around distractedly on his palm. “I mean, I still don’t understand what the difference really is. How do you even know if you love someone that way—or love them at all?” Zach detects a wavering distress in his voice and possibly a little bit of frustration. He considers how to respond.

"Well, if you want to be romantic with someone, you usually want to spend a lot of time with them. You try to do special things for them to show them how important they are to you. Like making them smile or giving them gifts—stuff that makes them happy.”

If possible, Malroth sounds even more perplexed when he asks, “So, like me and you?”

When Zach is stunned into silence, Malroth continues. “You made time for us to hang out together alone today and asked Babs to make a special dinner. You make weapons just for me and blow up wrecking balls in the desert because I like explosions. I want to protect you from monsters that could break you like a twig, and I want to see you smile every day and spend time with just the two of us. But what can people do when they love each other romantically that they can’t do when they’re just friends? I still don’t see the difference.” He tosses some berries in his mouth, chewing with a single-minded intensity. Then he pauses chewing and blurts out with a mouthful of glowing berry goop, “Wait. Kissing! You were being so weird about it. Is that the difference?”

Zach is grateful for the nearly non-existent light in the cave because it means that Malroth is much less likely to notice his face reddening once again. “Um…” He snatches the rest of Malroth berries and shoves them in his mouth to avoid answering. The sourness offers him a wonderful excuse to keep his mouth closed when his lips purse at the taste.

Malroth laughs at his antics. “So that’s a yes then. You already kind of admitted to wanting to kiss me, so why don’t we? We apparently already do other things that friends don’t normally do, so why stop at looking?”

Zach could die. He could die right here in the back of a dark cave at the end of a creepy tunnel over Malroth’s easy confidence.

There are so many reasons—so many—why they should stop at looking. People usually talk about this kind of stuff first, right? And, well, they _had_ just talked about it (an embarrassing amount, really), but were either of them truly sure where they stood now? They knew that Zach wanted to get his lips all over Malroth’s, but did he feel the same in return? Was this only his curiosity speaking?”

“Oh, you have a little…” Malroth is suddenly brushing his thumb along Zach’s bottom lip, wiping away some berry juice he hadn’t noticed. He looks right into Zach’s eyes as he pops his thumb into his own mouth, pulls it out clean and shiny with spit, and says, “Your lips are glowing.”

“Yours are too,” Zach says dumbly. He feels like a wrecking ball just went off a bit too close and left his ears ringing. Malroth continues as if he hadn’t just turned Zach’s world briefly upside down.

“Look, I’ve obviously never kissed anyone before—that I remember, at least. But maybe we could try it? Everyone else seems to like it, and now that I know what the big deal is about looking at people in swimsuits since I’ve seen you in one, I kind of want to give it a go. So, do you—”

“Yes! Fuck, yes, I want to kiss you, but you have got to stop talking, or I’m going to _die_. Please, just shut up, and stop being so honest.” He slaps his hands over his scorching face and begs for an actual sea monster to devour him so that he can escape this entire embarrassing ordeal.

He can feel Malroth’s growing smirk even though he can’t see it, and a chill runs up his spine in warning. “So, does that mean I’d get to kiss you back to life?” Malroth nudges him again with his shoulder and makes some obnoxious kissy noises.

“I’m going to kill you and _not_ kiss you back to life if you don’t stop teasing me.” He drops his hands and glares at Malroth. Are their faces closer together than before?

“What, are you going to strangle me with your tiny little builder hands?” Malroth’s eyes hold a mischievous glint and a dangerous challenge.

“Maybe…maybe I’ll steal your breath another way.”

FUCK. That sounded so _stupid_. Why did he say that? Maybe the rumored Master of Destruction will finally show up and smite him so he doesn’t have to face the consequences of his _stupid fucking mouth_. 

Malroth’s face draws impossibly closer, and Zach can feel his warm breath brush across his skin. “If you think you can make me shut up, be my guest.”

Zach flicks his gaze briefly at Malroth’s mouth. The hair on his arms sticks up and he wrestles down an instinctive shiver when Malroth licks his lips and stares back with burning red eyes framed by impossibly dark lashes.

He doesn’t so much as lean close enough to touch as allow himself to fall and melt into Malroth’s space, their bodies subconsciously turned toward one another. But right as his lips brush warmly over Malroth’s, he feels something slither against his knee, and he jerks so hard that their faces collide painfully. The clash of teeth and noses makes them both reel back in eye-watering shock, and Malroth rubs at his nose roughly as he curses aloud, “What the hell was that for?”

Zach’s voice is embarrassingly shrill when he exclaims, “Something touched my leg!” His eyes flit rapidly over the water’s surface seeking out a snake or monster when Malroth starts laughing. Zach looks at him in betrayal.

“Look, it was just a fish,” Malroth says. He points at a large, glowing fish loitering around their legs before scaring it away with his foot. “You’re so jumpy. You’d think you were nervous or something.” The tone of his voice makes it sound as if they’re both in on an inside joke, and it serves to calm Zach the slightest bit.

His next move completely obliterates them.

Malroth reaches his hand over and rests it on Zach’s thigh right above his knee where the fish touched him. “Stop worrying. I said I’d always protect you, right?” Then he proceeds to hook his fingers under Zach’s knee and slide him right back into his space. “I think you should let me try now.”

Zach heart picks up, and he squints at him suspiciously. “You’re pretty cocky for never having kissed before.”

“Yeah, but have you?”

Zach is still in the process of coming up with a retort when their lips meet again.

His first thought is how warm and safe he feels this close to Malroth. More of his wet hair is clinging to Zach’s shoulder, and his hand is still curled under Zach’s knee, broad palm resting against the back of his calf.

His next thought is that Malroth’s lips are surprisingly soft and very pleasant to press his own against. He could easily let himself sink into the warmth of the water lapping against his legs, into Malroth’s mouth, his hands, his closeness.

After that all he can think about is the fact that he has absolutely no idea what to do from here.

He’s pressed face to face with his best friend, and for once he can’t rely on their snarky bickering to keep him afloat. In theory he knows that he’s supposed to move his lips a lot and maybe use his tongue, but it’s the _how_ that stumps him. Schematics and blueprints won’t help him here. Building a massive tree from the ground up? Piece of cake. But kissing Malroth and not making an absolute fool of himself? He’s not even sure a personal blessing from Rubiss herself could help him now.

“Geez,” Malroth pulls back. Zach’s chest tightens with the sudden fear that Malroth is going to call him out for being a really awful kisser. Because he would be right. “You’re so tense. I’m not going to eat your face off like those miners. It’s okay to be nervous, but I promise I’m not gonna sit here and judge your kissing skills when we’re both new at this.”

“I’m not nervous.”

“You always rub the back of your neck when you’re nervous,” Malroth says with a raised eyebrow, glancing pointedly at the arm Zach had unthinkingly lifted up behind him when he spoke. He hadn’t even noticed.

Before he can drop his arm down and further incriminate himself, Malroth has nudged his hand away and replaced it with his own. His warm palm is the eye of the storm to Zach’s frazzled nerves and racing heart. He blinks for a stretching second and lets himself focus on its centering weight. He breathes out slowly and feels his muscles relax and the panic in his mind settle like the calm waters lapping at his thighs.

It’s possible that Malroth had hit the nail right on the head earlier when he accused him of getting too easily worked up about thinking he was hot in a swimsuit. Now he’s managed to throw himself into a tizzy over kissing of all things. Sure, he’s never done it before, but neither has Malroth. It’s not like either of them had ever fought a giant, rampaging monkey before Furrowfield or explored an ancient, booby-trapped temple before making their way to the desert either. This is just one more adventure for them to share and laugh about later.

He lets himself be drawn back in, melting under Malroth’s hand like butter, and allows him to take charge again. He’s surprised when their next kiss stays chaste and sweet. Malroth’s usual mode of operation is to leap before he looks and to smash things and ask questions later. So, Zach feels that it’s fair of him to have expected Malroth to jump into kissing with a similar fervor.

Instead, Malroth uses his other hand to tilt Zach’s chin so their lips slide together more comfortably. He can feel each fingerprint like a spine-tingling brand along his jaw, and he lets himself bask in the feeling of kissing Malroth—like sunlight washing over his skin—for several long seconds before he remembers that they have to break apart sometime, don’t they?

Do they?

He could stay like this forever.

Right before he pulls back reluctantly, he slits his eyes open just enough to peek at Malroth…whose eyes are open half-mast and steadily gaze at him with an intensity that makes Zach’s inside feel on fire.

“Hey, you can’t look while we’re kissing,” he murmurs against Malroth’s mouth. “That’s cheating.”

“How is that cheating?” Malroth argues, but his words stay quiet and don’t break the calm in the air between them. “If you ask me, getting to watch you when you’ve got your mouth on me makes me a winner.” Zach shivers at the unintentional innuendo.

“You realize that people usually cheat specifically to win, right? You can be both.” He laughs softly against Malroth’s mouth and follows it up with another brave peck on his lips.

Malroth’s hum is more of a pleased rumble when he reminds Zach, “Well that just makes us two of a kind. Don’t think I missed you looking back.”

“Guilty,” Zach admits with an impish smile that lets his lips slide deliciously against Malroth’s. He breathes out a warm breath against Malroth’s skin and feels the hand on his neck twitch and the fingers tighten imperceptibly.

His heart is starting to beat with a new brand of adrenaline-induced boldness, not unlike the bubbling buzz of alcohol. Now that his anxiety and fear have stationed themselves on the sidelines, they’ve left plenty of room for that daring side of himself that Malroth always draws out.

Having Malroth by his side has always given him the security to do more dangerous things just because he knows he’ll be safe if he gets himself into deep shit. This may not be quite like the time he oiled the rail cart tracks to make travel faster through the mines (which had ended in a spectacular collision with an extremely confused group of mad moles that Malroth had to whack back into the ground), but it’s something fun and new and exciting nonetheless—and arguably more of an adrenaline rush than anything dealing with monsters. The best part of the rush of kissing Malroth is that he feels completely safe while scratching a dangerous itch.

He pulls back from a lingering kiss to ask, “How are you good at this so quickly?”

Malroth lazily massages his thumb along Zach’s jawline as he speaks. He seems to be in no rush to draw Zach back in, but the hand resting firmly on his neck and the one on his face are a clear implication of his intent to not stop yet. “When I was asking around town about love and kissing, some of the miners actually told me how to do it. I just hadn’t tried it until now. I guess that means I’m a pretty quick study, huh?”

“Quicker than me, that’s for sure.”

“Hey, don’t count yourself out yet. This is the best kiss I’ve ever had.” Malroth smirks.

‘Ha ha, _cute_ ,” he responds dryly. Malroth must be able to tell that Zach is about to jab him in the side in revenge, because he takes that moment to lean forward and gently bump the side of his nose against Zach’s as a distraction. He leaves his lips hovering over the edge of Zach’s mouth without touching.

Zach’s neck and jaw burn under Malroth’s hands. He wants to try again. His lips feel over-sensitive, like they’re red and sunburned, but his heart races faster when he thinks of kissing through the sting. Malroth’s mouth is _right there_ , and his massaging fingers hypnotize with their tender pressure and unhurried movements.

He turns his head just enough for his lips to tease against Malroth’s when he murmurs, “Since you’re a kissing prodigy already, maybe you can show me some more. I obviously need practice.”

“Well,” Malroth replies, voice low and rumbly, “I would be a pretty lame best friend if I didn’t help you out, right?”

“Definitely,” Zach whispers uselessly. Neither of them heard it anyway. Malroth is too busy capturing his lips in another breathtaking kiss, and Zach is too far gone to think anymore. Thinking had only kept him from this for a disappointing amount of time. He sinks into the warmth against his mouth, on his neck and face, and seeks out more still. His hands, curled uselessly against his legs up until now, reach out to find more of Malroth, more of that exhilarating contact.

His hands must still be cool from the lake water because when his fingers land on Malroth’s chest, they burn. Zach has a fleeting, hilarious thought that Malroth could keep this little cave warm all on his own if its natural heat source ever ran out. For now, he spreads his fingers out like a cat stretching in the sun and soaks up the fire beneath Malroth’s skin.

He makes a soft sound and turns his head even more for a deeper angle as his hands find their way over every inch of skin they can find. Their lips stick from dryness as they pull apart and press together again and again, and Zach revels in how bruised his lips feel against the softness of Malroth’s mouth. The next time they start to pull away briefly, Zach daringly catches Malroth’s bottom lip between his teeth, and suddenly Malroth’s mouth is on his again with more force behind it like he’s intent on waging a war.

The hand on Zach’s jaw tightens briefly before it slides down to rest in the crook of his neck, palm over his collarbone, and when Malroth sucks Zach’s bottom lip between his own, he feels like he sees stars. The hand on the back of his neck disappears as Malroth shifts to move himself even farther into Zach’s space.

Suddenly Zach feels one of his legs repositioned to drape over Malroth’s thigh and the knees of their other legs bump together where the rest on the ground. Zach is surprised at how easily they fit together. For all that they spend nearly every waking hour attached at the hip, they’re still vastly different people. But the way he fits against Malroth is like a missing part of him finally found its rightful place again.

Zach sighs into the kiss and doesn’t think twice about licking his lips to moisten them for the next kiss when he feels Malroth’s lips let up their pressure for a split second.

He apparently wasn’t far enough back to avoid feeling Zach’s tongue on his mouth, because he startles and draws back to prod at his lips with a look of confusion. ““Whoa, what was that? Did you lick me?”

Embarrassed, Zach backs up even more, dropping his hands from Malroth’s chest. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to. My lips are dry.” He licks them again nervously and catches Malroth glancing at his mouth, then away, then discreetly back again. He looks…curious.

Zach has an idea. It could very possibly be a bad one. But he had thought inviting Malroth down here was going to be a bad idea too and look what happened.

“You know,” he starts, “some people use tongue when they kiss.” He leaves the sentence hanging in the air, but this time instead of pointedly refusing to make eye contact due to his nerves, he steels himself and looks right at Malroth with the most open expression he can slap on. Regardless of whether or not he wants to give it a go, Zach wants to make sure to show him that he’s only on board with what Malroth also wants to try. There’s no sense in them forcing themselves into an uncomfortable situation just for the experience.

Malroth blinks at him with wide eyes. “Whoa, that sounds gross. Can we try that?”

Zach snorts. “I have absolutely no idea how to do it, but yeah. I think we could at least try and see what happens.” He catches Malroth licking his own lips with anticipation in his eyes.

There’s an awkward second where neither of them seems sure of how to resume before Zach makes the first move and reaches out for Malroth again. He twists his fingers into his necklace and pulls him forward so they’re nose to nose, and he smiles before tilting his head and sliding their lips together once again.

He starts slowly. Despite how easy it feels now to push himself so close to Malroth, he really has never done this before, and he’s reminded of that when he considers the best way to get his tongue into Malroth’s mouth.

Or would Malroth want to use his instead? If he got startled by a tongue touching his lips, maybe he wouldn’t want one slipping past them. _What if he thinks my tongue is gross?_ _Like a—an eel or something,_ he frets.

Malroth shifts and makes an impatient noise, latching onto Zach’s arm and trying to tug his body even closer. Zach follows, scraping his legs against the rock beneath him and not caring, but his brain nearly shorts out when he realizes this leaves him basically in Malroth’s lap. Malroth has one leg still hanging off of their ledge, but the other is tucked partially under him leaving room for Zach to wedge himself closer. Zach’s free hand hovers in the air, unsure of where to touch, before it settles lightly on the muscle of Malroth’s bare thigh.

He hears Malroth breathe in through his nose sharply as Zach’s tongue traces his lips, but he doesn’t retreat this time. His thigh stiffens slightly under Zach’s hand, but it quickly relaxes when he presses his fingertips into it soothingly.

He slides his tongue teasingly against the seam of Malroth’s lips, expecting that to signal him to part them. It doesn’t work. At a loss for any other way to prompt him, Zach breaks their kiss with a pleasant smack and sounds only a little winded when he says, “You have to open your mouth.”

Malroth frowns at him. “Why do I have to open it? I’m trying to kiss you—not talk to you.” He raises an eyebrow pointedly like he’s trying to insinuate that Zach should quit yapping and get back to smooching.

“How am I supposed to put my tongue in your mouth if you won’t open it?” Zach quips.

He can practically see the tiny lightbulb flick on above Malroth’s head. “Oh! It goes _in_ my mouth. I thought you were just gonna lick my mouth like a dog or something.” He laughs at the expression of bafflement and slight disgust that flickers over Zach’s face.

“I don’t even know what to say to that. Didn’t the guys tell you about tongue? And do you let dogs lick your mouth? Because I may be having second thoughts.” He suspiciously lets go of Malroth’s necklace and leans back slightly.

Malroth snorts at him and kicks his foot in the water, stirring up the fish again and causing their meager light source to dart around in the water and make light dance wildly across their bodies. “They were all pretty shifty about it. I had to bully most of what I got out of them, so they probably left a lot out.” He shrugs. “And dogs lick your face when they’re happy to see you. So sometimes they lick your mouth, too. One of them did manage to lick the inside of my mouth once when I was laughing, and that was pretty nasty. Is your tongue gonna feel like that?”

He looks somewhat disturbed, so Zach says the most reassuring thing he can think of at the moment. “Oh fuck, I hope not.” Malroth’s following laughter is contagious, and Zach can’t help but to join in.

“It sounds strange, but I’m still up to try if you want to.”

Zach rolls his eyes fondly. “You’re the one who mentioned _dogs_.”

“Maybe you’re just worried that dog was a better kisser than you. I don’t see you trying to prove that wrong.” Zach equally wants to throttle him for that cocky smile and kiss it right off of his face.

Like there was ever any question.

He moves both of his hands to cradle Malroth’s strong jaw and dips his head for a decent angle. This time it only takes a few tender pecks before Malroth follows his cue and parts his lips. The moment his tongue slides against gum and teeth, he twitches.

That feels so fucking weird.

Malroth seems to agree if the way he squirms is any indication. But his fingers teasing along the side of Zach’s neck give him the courage to press on and slide their tongues together. He shivers at the lingering sour taste in Malroth’s mouth.

Malroth grasps at his hips, but one hand slips and catches on the string of his swimsuit and curls there, and he gasps into Malroth’s mouth. Malroth’s fingers dig in firmly, and Zach burns with the want to press closer and closer until their chests melt together and their bodies tangle so impossibly that they can never pull apart.

Instead he presses his tongue forward to seek Malroth’s again, but this time Malroth makes a choking sound and uses his hold on Zach’s hips to push him back enough to get some air.

Zach gulps in a breath. “Sorry, too far?”

“Yeah,” Malroth croaks. “I’m not quite ready for swallowing your tongue. If that’s a thing, too.”

Zach snorts. “Not a thing. Or, well, I don’t think it is. I don’t think I want to try that either. I’m not sure how I feel about tongue, honestly. It felt,” he fishes around for the right word, “slippery.”

“Kinda just felt like a dog tongue to me,” Malroth comments cheekily.

Zach scowls playfully back at him. “Gee, thanks for saying I kiss like a dog. I’ll make sure to never do it again.”

Malroth cackles. “No! I don’t want to go crawling back to the Furrowfield retriever. You at least don’t have dog breath.” He pulls Zach close to him again and smacks a light kiss on the corner of his mouth. Zach giggles. “And you look great in red.”

And wow. Is Malroth...flirting? Zach admires the heated look in his eyes as he stares back. It’s hard to see in the lambent lowlight, but he thinks he catches Malroth’s eyes flicker down his body. Zach doesn’t want things to get too out of hand tonight—he already wasn’t expecting to be kissed nearly out of his mind—but he can flirt back, right?

“It feels weird to not be covered up like normal, but,” he fingers the edge of the apron resting across his upper thighs, “it’s kind of growing on me.”

And fuck if Malroth’s voice isn’t the perfect imitation of the rumbling purr of a great sabrecat when he draws Zach flush against him and replies, “It’s growing on me too.”

Zach loses any sense of time as they kiss again. His lips are pliant and sore, and he tips his head back as Malroth cradles his cheek with a big, warm hand and takes his breath away. He can’t keep track of their hands after that. He feels Malroth’s beating heart pulsing away under his fingertips when he touches his neck, and then he tries valiantly to avoid sliding his hungry hands all over his well-defined chest. He feels Malroth follow his lead and leaves traces of his touch anywhere he can reach. Zach gasps as fingers massage into his back, his neck, dangerously high on his thigh before slipping to the side to caress his hips once again.

Zach’s ears ring with the echoing sounds of water dripping, of their lips meeting and pulling apart, of their gasping breaths in this tiny cocoon of warmth and quiet that they’ve found for themselves. His head is spinning like it does after a night of drinking at the bar, frothy and bubbly and bright, and he starts to wonder if Malroth’s lips have their own special brand of magic before remembering that he might just not be getting enough air to his brain.

Luckily Malroth pulls back with a heavy breath before Zach has to figure out how to untwine from him. “Why am I more out of breath kissing you than when I fight monsters?”

Zach flutters his eyelashes at him comically, though he may have missed it in the darkness. “Probably because I’m just so breathtaking.”

Malroth snorts dryly. “Yeah, you’re really—glowing?”

“Aw, thanks. I moisturize.”

“No, dumbass, you’re _actually_ glowing.” He snatches Zach’s arm and holds it out between them. Lit up in a faint, glowing blue around his wrist is what looks like the imprint of fingers. He catches a similar glow hiding on Malroth’s hands and flips one over to inspect it. It’s a perfect match to the marks on his own arm.

Then he remembers finger painting with berry juice earlier.

He looks at his own hands and sees that they still glow rather brightly. He looks slowly up at Malroth’s chest and nearly bursts out laughing. Malroth has blue lines streaked and smeared all over his skin, everywhere that Zach touched him. There’s a perfect set of fingerprints branded into his thigh and Zach’s humor quickly dissolves into a simmer low in his gut. He kind of likes the look of Malroth with evidence of Zach’s hands all over him. He had been a little too _busy_ earlier to notice, but the glowing marks are striking if a little faint.

But how the hell was that juice potent enough that it lasted so long? And how did it not wash off when they got in the water? He wets his hand and scrubs at it.

Nope. It’s not going anywhere for a while.

Then he feels Malroth poking him over and over and catches him drawing a goofy face on his leg in blue. He smacks him away. “Don’t start a war that you’re not willing to lose, Malroth.”

 _That_ was the wrong thing to say.

Malroth eyes flash with a spark of challenge, and he darts his hands forward to attack. Zach is just quick enough to grab his wrists, but it’s an effort and a half to hold them far enough away from his face to keep from getting fingerprints smeared all over. His arms shake, and he starts to giggle helplessly as Malroth chuckles darkly and wiggles his fingers closer and closer to Zach’s face evilly.

He finally overpowers Zach and starts peppering him all over with little blue fingerprints. Zach begs mercy in a fit of helpless giggles and tries to give back as good as he gets. He’s at a disadvantage due to how ticklish he is (and how well Malroth can and does exploit that), but he gets a few good pokes at Malroth’s forehead and big ears.

Quickly out of breath again from their laughter, they call a truce to their ruthless game and wind down, though neither is above a few last underhanded sneak attacks at unguarded ribs and stomachs. They sit together comfortably and let their heartbeats settle again and their bodies relax.

They sit side by side now, thigh to thigh, and kick their feet lazily in the water and let it lap over their legs calmly. Malroth has both arms behind him to lean back against, and Zach leans into his side and rests a hand on his thigh, playing with the sparse hairs on it.

What a night.

He sighs and lets his head fall back to stare at the ceiling. He spots a few clusters of berries above him, and he thinks of the stars that are likely hanging over the pool at the bar right now. He would have never expected only a few hours ago that he would end up sitting here, resting comfortably against Malroth in a cozy kissing cave. A few hours ago he would have even laughed at the idea that he would enjoy wearing a skimpy swimsuit, but he’s quickly come to appreciate how it lets him feel Malroth’s warm skin flush against his own as they sit together in companionable silence. He feels that familiar flutter of guilt and regret at how long it took him to seek out Malroth and allow himself to fall back into their easy coexistence, but then he remembers how many times Malroth reassured him throughout the night that he would always be there no matter what. He really had been worried for nothing.

He tries to think of a way to put into words how grateful for Malroth’s friendship he is, how lucky he feels to possibly have something more with him now, but before his mind and tongue can sort themselves out, the cave suddenly becomes a little brighter. He blinks and looks down only to spy the biggest glowing fish he’s seen yet.

This one is an incredibly vibrant pink.

It swims serenely near the water’s surface, floating like a dream through the warm waters. Where the little blue fish dart in their hurry for food and play, this new one seems in no rush to explore. Zach feels like he’s caught in a spell as he watches it glide through the water like a cherry blossom petal on a gentle breeze. He holds his breath without thinking, terrified to move wrong and scare it away.

He’s never seen another fish like it. He’s managed to reel in no small number of angelfish and rainbow trout and colorful carp in the main lake, but something inside him balks at the thought of catching this beauty and not immediately releasing it. Even the glowing blue ones are pretty enough that he would probably throw them back rather than bring them to the kitchens for dinner, but for how unique they are, there’s still something... _enigmatic_ about the new fish drifting about the pool.

It glitters like a ruby held up to the sun for inspection, each scale refracting light like the sharp edges of a cut gem. But he swears its billowy fins are in the rough shape of…hearts.

Staring too long at it makes his chest tighten and ache for air, makes his heart beat faster, makes him think of…

Malroth leans forward and exclaims, “Wow, look at that one, Zach! It’s like a monster fish. How badass!” He leans forward with no hesitation or fear of spooking the fish and makes an excited sound as he plots aloud how they could capture it and use it to terrify Dougie in the pool later. But Zach had stopped listening the second the light from the fish touched Malroth’s skin.

As stunning as Malroth had been awash in glowing blue, it can’t begin to compare to how he looks now. His delighted face glows pink as he grins at Zach in amazement for a second before turning to look back at the fish, still chatting away. All of his rough edges—his handsome cheekbones, his strong jaw, the sharp jut of his collarbones—have been softened and rounded out with a blushing highlight. It sinks into the shadowy dips of his muscles like a rosy secret, but this time as Zach watches the light play over his skin, the last thing he’s concerned with is how attractive Malroth’s body is.

All he can think of is how exceptionally lucky he is to have the chance to see Malroth like this: smiling, sweet, soft. That Malroth feels comfortable enough with him not to act tough all the time like he does with everyone else, that he lets Zach close enough to kiss and hold and whisper to...well. Zach’s heart feels full to bursting with enough gratitude and love to ring the builder’s bell completely under his own power. 

He tries to refocus when he hears Malroth ask him a direct question. “Where do you think it came from?” he asks, completely oblivious to Zach’s internal epiphany. “I know we didn’t see it in the lake or the tunnel. Maybe its friends told it we were giving out free food.” He laughs and scrounges up a few berry stragglers clinging to the walls before tossing them to the pink fish.

It has no interest in them.

It floats right past the fruit—which is quickly gobbled up by the nearby blue fish—and heads right for them instead. Zach fights down the sudden urge to pull his legs out of the water.

It’s just a fish. What is it going to do, nibble their toes?

Luckily, it doesn’t take an interest in their toes either. Instead, it brushes its heart-shaped fins languidly against their legs and doesn’t seem phased in the slightest when Zach’s leg twitches unintentionally at the ticklish feeling. It makes a few passes, each time swimming in the pattern of a flat figure eight. Zach feels Malroth slide his fingers between his own so that their hands clasp.

His eyes are tender and his smile so painfully sweet when he turns to Zach and says, “I know I said it earlier, but I’m really glad you invited me down here tonight. You put a lot of time into planning this just for us, and I don’t think it could have gone any better, even if we did go a little off book.” His eyes glow like banked embers in the soft pink light, and Zach’s heart clenches again at how ridiculously lucky he is to have Malroth in his life.

Malroth isn’t done. “And this may sound sappy, so you’d better not judge me,” he threatens with a tight squeeze to Zach’s hand, “but that fish kind of got me thinking. I may not understand a lot about love yet, and most of what I do understand sounds pretty dumb honestly, but I want to keep learning. I want to know how I feel about you so I can tell you one day. Because even if love is dumb, you’ve somehow always been an exception to everything else too. So, maybe we can keep being friends who kiss until I know how I love you for sure.”

Zach is _not_ going to cry. He’s already gone misty-eyed once tonight, and he refuses to ruin Malroth’s tender confession by bawling like a baby after. So instead, he twists and wraps his free arm around Malroth and hugs him tightly. The arms of their joined hands are crushed uncomfortably between their bodies, and the angle is odd since they’re still sitting with their legs pressed together, but there’s nowhere else that Zach would rather be right now.

“We can be friends who kiss for as long as you want. And I mean that,” he gives Malroth a playful wink as he pulls back, and it earns him a laugh. “But if you ever don’t want to kiss anymore, that’s okay with me too. Just getting to be your best friend is more than I could ask for.”

They’re both distracted from further sappy, heartfelt admissions when the light starts to dim as the pink fish—apparently finished with whatever strange, fishy blessing it was bestowing upon them with those suspiciously heart-shaped fins—begins to stray from the pool in the direction of the underwater tunnel. Malroth looks a little bummed over its departure, so Zach suggests they follow it.

“Maybe we can see where it goes and come visit it again later. I mean, we already have to come back so I can sketch the fountain…” He leaves his sentence hanging in the air like a ripe fruit on a branch in front of Malroth’s nose and waits.

He doesn’t have to wait long.

“Race you!” Malroth cheers.

He shoves Malroth to the side as they scramble off of the ledge, finally getting a little sweet revenge as well as another head start this time.

Malroth sputters and yells, “You’re gonna need some serious CPR when I catch up with you, Zach!”

Zach grins before he takes a deep breath and dives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOBODY LOOK AT ME!!! Again, sorry for putting you through my probably way too longwinded kissing scene GOOD GOD. My poor sister tried to give me some advice on how to smooth it out and told me to cut down on it a little, but I probably didn't do it enough:P This isn't the end of the fic though! Still 2 more chapters! But I'm still rereading them, so give me just a little more time<3


	5. Chapter 5

** Malroth **

They come up for air on the opposite end, finally back to the main lake. The fish had acted as their glowing guide the whole way but had vanished into the dark as soon as they cleared the tunnel. Now the only light to be seen is clear across the cavern where Zach had set up the torches for their picnic.

“Guess it’s finally time to eat, huh?” Malroth asks, stomach rumbling right on cue.

Zach wipes some hair out of his face and nods eagerly. “I’m so hungry I could eat a hoodlum,” he groans.

Malroth feels his face scrunch up. “I know this won’t mean much coming from me of all people, but that’s disgusting.”

“Yeah…” Zach sighs.

By the time they reach the lakeside where they left their things, his arms ache from the swim over, and he thinks he could probably eat a hoodlum too, no matter how gross it sounds. He sees Zach veer off to the side suddenly, headed for an odd-looking section of the cliff wall.

“Come on,” Zach calls back to him. “I carved some stairs for us to use when we were done swimming.” He pulls himself up on what Malroth can now see is a builder-made stone staircase leading up out of the water and to the top of the cliffs ringing the lake. Malroth scoffs and turns away as Zach heads up, and he looks around for some vines.

“Thanks, but I’m gonna climb up the badass way. Stairs are for weaklings and twiggy builders.” He doesn’t have to look to feel the scathing glare that Zach throws him. “And I bet I’ll be able to stuff my face even more after _this_ workout!”

“Go right ahead. I’ll be eating dinner while I wait for you, then.” Malroth hates that he really enjoys the smug lilt to Zach’s voice. As well as the way he walks up the stairs with the pale expanse of his back and long legs on display. It fires him up to scale the wall as quickly as possible.

He finds a promising section of sturdy vines and manages to get about halfway up the uneven cliff face before the vines bunched in his left hand give way and plunge him straight back into the unforgiving lake. He comes up coughing and shoving his sopping hair out of his face, and it takes him a long second before he realizes that he hears the sound of unrestrained laughter. He peers up through his dark veil of soaked hair and spies Zach on the cliff staring down at him, towel draped over his shoulders.

He has a fist propped on one hip and a cocky grin from ear to ear as he calls down to Malroth in a shitty sing-song voice, “You’re missing out on some really good kebabs. Better hurry up or they might all be gone by the time your big, strong arms get you to the top.” He takes a hearty bite out of the juicy, gleaming marshroom skewer in his other hand before waving it teasingly in the air and walking out of Malroth’s line of sight.

Fuck it.

He climbs the stairs in a rush to make absolutely sure that Zach won’t leave him with nothing to pig out on. Zach is already settled on their group of blankets with his skewer held between his teeth, legs crossed and scrubbing at his hair with his towel. He grunts through his clenched teeth in acknowledgment when he notices Malroth’s arrival and jerks his head over to where they left their bags and clothes.

Their torches are burning low by now, flickering like old candles, but Malroth thinks it feels cozier this way. It reminds him of nights in a shared room with Zach hunched over his book on the table while Malroth is lulled to sleep by the rhythmic, wavering light that Zach reads by.

Zach obviously hadn’t been interested in brightening the place up this late in the night either, so Malroth skirts around a torch to snag the other towel lying on top of Zach’s bag and throws it over his shoulder. He rounds up his hair and leans over to squeeze what looks like the entire lake out of it, and he wraps it up all fancily with his towel like he saw Serge do once; the guy might be a wimpy weakling, but he has style at least. Malroth returns to their blanket pile and plops down on top of it, deciding to just let the rest of him air dry.

Zach tosses his skewer aside as he swallows the last bite. He spares Malroth an amused glace as he sets out their dinner. “You look like a seaslime,” he jokes.

“Yeah, and my arms feel like one.” Zach passes him a loaf of bread with a golden-brown crust, and it’s still warm and toasty in his hands. He remembers how excited Zach had been when they stumbled upon a few stray bushels of wheat hiding in a deep ravine under a bridge connecting two sections of the mine together. Zach had been using it sparingly, so Malroth smiles to himself to see that he had deemed tonight special enough to dip into his meager supply.

“That couldn’t _possibly_ be from trying to scale a wall after swimming across the entire lake, could it?” Zach snorts and spreads out several decorative wraps woven from dried grasses and filled with bundles of delectable marshroom skewers. Last are two copper dishes covered over the top with thick towels to hold in heat. Malroth sets the bread aside and peels back one of the towels to reveal thick cuts of spiced meat soaking in their own juices. His mouth waters.

He doesn’t have a chance to reply when Zach stands up suddenly and exclaims, “Oh, I almost forgot!”

Zach hurries back to the staircase and disappears down them. Malroth waits for a few seconds to see if he’s going to return, and when he doesn’t, he shrugs and snags a skewer for himself. Let’s see who there won’t be any food left for now.

Zach trots back up the steps a few moments later with a suspiciously bright smile on his face and a soaked sack cradled in his arms.

“What’s that?” Malroth says through his mouthful of chewed food.

“I saved this as a surprise, but I almost forget it was here. Look.” He sits back down, removing a length of rope twisted around the top of the sack, and unwraps it to reveal…two glass bottles of alcohol. “Can’t have a picnic without drinks.”

Malroth grins in excitement and reaches out for one of the bottles, tossing his empty skewer to the side. Zach hands him the opposite one, sepia and rectangular, and passes him a corkscrew to open it with. He had shown Malroth how he made them by twisting a thin length of red-hot metal into a spiral and later fitting it into a little wooden handle. Den had nearly cried the day Zach had first come up with the idea, overjoyed to finally have an easier way to crack open his backstock.

The bottle is cool and wet under his fingers, and when he takes a deep whiff at the top, he is pleased to discover the bubbly fizz of prickly pop.

“I know that’s your favorite,” Zach admits as he accepts the corkscrew back and pops open his own clear bottle. “I brought digger’s jigger for me. I know you don’t like sweet stuff as much, but let me know if you want any, and I might be convinced to share.” He swishes the pink liquid around in the bottle with an impish smile before taking a deep swig.

Zach sighs contentedly, and his shoulders relax as Malroth takes a test sip from his own bottle. Zach told him once that prickly pop tastes sort of like a sour watermelon to him. Whatever a watermelon is. Malroth just remembers the one time Den overdid it on the alcohol, and his throat was on fire for the rest of the evening.

The drink surprises him, but not because of the alcohol this time.

“It’s cold!” he exclaims with wide eyes. He smacks his lips and takes another, bigger swig and realizes why Zach had look so pleased when he drank his own; it’s like drinking from a clear, chilled stream on a sunny day.

“That’s why they were in the water,” Zach laughs. “I weighed the sack down with rocks and tied the top so the bottles would stay under the water and chill for a few hours. I think it worked pretty well.” He admires his bottle with the same proud gleam in his eye that he gets when he’s finished a challenging building project. No matter how big or small the problem, Zach always looks equally pleased about his solutions.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go back to drinking them normally now,” Malroth sighs. “This is so much better.” He takes another drink before Zach nudges a bundle of skewers in his direction.

“Don’t fill up on alcohol, Malroth. There’s plenty of food to go around.”

They settle in on their massive mound of blankets, and Malroth lets his hair down out of the towel. The water dripping down his back and legs has started to dry in the cool cave air, and it leaves him chilled. He pulls his damp towel more tightly around his shoulders and holds one of the copper tins between his hands to warm himself up.

Zach has his legs stretched out in front of him, bent at the knees so he can hold his own tin in his lap to pick out of it. Malroth can see thin rivulets of water running down his neck and chest from his damp hairline, but he seems unbothered. The water droplets still caught on his leg hair sparkle like the dewy condensation sliding down the sides of the glass bottles between them, and Malroth watches them as he munches on his marshrooms.

He’s so glad he stuck with Zach tonight and didn’t blow him off to laze around the pool again. He’s still having trouble wrapping his head around this entire experience, but he thinks it’s safe to say tonight is going to settle in his mind as one of those fuzzy memories that he’ll never forget, like the first time he saw Zach smile and make a blueprint or the night of the harvest festival back in Furrowfield. The pool will always be there to go back to later, but moments like these are few and far between, and he has learned to treasure each and every one of them. 

He realizes that he’s eaten his way through another entire skewer and decides to try the meat instead. It’s tender between his fingertips and drips juice down his hand when he lifts it to his mouth. He relishes the heat from the spices and the way it practically melts on his tongue. The bread loaf crackles deliciously when he breaks it in half and soaks a chunk of it in the meaty juices.

He has a sudden thought mid-swallow, and it turns into a painful gulp. He asks Zach slowly, “This isn’t hoodlum meat, is it?”

Zach laughs so hard he almost spews marshroom bits in Malroth’s face. “It’s from the Tyrantosaurus we beat the other day!”

Malroth frowns and then raises his eyebrows in dawning comprehension. “Oh, you mean the big lizard.”

Zach snorts and argues, “You can’t just call it a lizard; it almost took your head off with an axe the size of a tree.”

“Nuh-uh. I totally had that. _And_ ,” he continues, talking right over Zach’s reminder that Malroth is still missing a suspicious amount of hair on one side of his usual ponytail, “it could breathe fire. So, lizard.”

Zach flicks a piece of marshroom at Malroth’s forehead. “Lizards can’t breathe fire either!” His voice is raised in what could possibly be irritation but is more likely frustration that he, in fact, did not know that lizards were capable of breathing fire.

Malroth rubs the grease away with the back of his hand. It leaves a shiny streak. “Uh, yeah they can. Magrog told me. Why do you think they sun on rocks?”

Zach lets out a strange mixture of a laugh and a scoff. “I don’t know, why do _you_ think they sun on rocks?”

Malroth explains, “They’re absorbing heat all day so they can turn it into fire. It’s just like how standing out in the sun enough could give me a fire immunity.”

“And how did _that_ work out for you?” Zach’s eyes are exasperated but fond, and his lips glisten when he smiles, shiny from their greasy food. In the low-burning torchlight around them, they still glow faintly blue. He licks them before taking a slow drink from his bottle. 

“I think it worked out pretty well. I got to spend time with you alone, and you had your hands all over me, so I’d say it’s worth repeating. Even if I won’t be inflammable.”

It’s a good thing that Zach had just finished swallowing because he has a face on that says he would have sprayed his drink otherwise. Malroth is expecting a blustering lecture on why he’s being dumb and a deflection back to how he really ought to stop listening to Magrog, so he’s surprised when Zach flushes, looks away, and mumbles, “You don’t have to go get a sunburn if you want that.”

Malroth smirks. “Oh yeah? What do I have to do then? Maybe if I do try to jump in the pool naked and Babs strangles me, you’ll give me CPR.”

“You’re such an idiot.” Zach plunks his bottle down on the floor next to the blanket with a sense of finality. “You should kiss me again.”

“Oh, so that’s your game, huh? Try to distract me, and hope I forget about the lizards?”

Zach rolls his eyes and starts shoving dishes away from him to clear space. “Just get over here and kiss me, you dork.”

So Malroth sets his drink on the solid ground beside their blankets where it’s less likely to get knocked down and crawls over to settle himself next to Zach. Malroth draws him close by his waist, and Zach follows, sliding right onto his lap this time with no persuading. He drapes his arms around Malroth’s shoulders loosely and immediately goes in for the first kiss. His lips are still warm from their meal, and Malroth tastes peppery spices and the earthiness of marshrooms when he slides his tongue fleetingly against Zach’s bottom lip. Zach hums against him and relaxes even more in his arms, so Malroth prods at his lips again and isn’t too surprised when Zach allows him to slip his tongue inside. 

He feels guilty for teasing Zach so much about this earlier because for how strange it felt to have a tongue in his mouth, it feels even more unsettling to have his tongue in someone else’s mouth. But Zach hasn’t made any move to stop him yet, so he tries to copy what he remembers feeling. He knows not to stick his tongue in too far, so instead he traces the inside of his lips and cheeks and revels in the lingering berry-sweetness from digger’s jigger. Zach shivers against him and presses his fingers deeply against Malroth’s back as they leisurely enjoy the pliancy of each other’s mouths and breathe in sync.

When Zach starts to pull away, Malroth’s mind is too foggy with warmth to notice, and he tries to follow. A hand on his chest stops him, and he blinks his eyes open dazedly.

“Sorry, I just—” Zach pauses, other hand hovering in front of his mouth, “—I have to burp.”

Malroth snorts and rolls his eyes. “Great timing,” he teases.

Zach grimaces and smacks his chest a few times, waiting with an expectant expression before eventually shrugging. “Nope, it’s gone.”

Malroth moves to latch onto him again and demands, “Then get back over here.”

Zach resists, pressing both hands back against Malroth. “What if it’s still there and I have to burp again? If I burp in your mouth, there’s no coming back from that. I’d have to move to the other side of the world and start a new life.”

Malroth laughs. “You’re such a drama queen.” But he doesn’t press him more than that. It’s not like they won’t have time later. He could always tug Zach behind the Copper Bar some other night...

He lets himself fall back into the plush blankets beneath him and sighs contentedly. This really is way better than the pool. He feels Zach flop down next to him, and they rest in peaceful silence together amidst the distant sounds of waterfalls and rhythmic dripping. The flickering firelight dances slowly behind Malroth’s eyelids, and Zach’s calm breathing settles him as they lie side by side.

He isn’t ready for the night to come to a close. This is the most time that he and Zach have spent together in what feels like forever, and he’s suddenly loath to let go of it. What happens when tonight ends? Do they go back to being friends in the light of day and become friends who kiss at night? He had felt confident when he told Zach that he wanted to learn more about love and kissing with him, but now he’s remembering all of the little rules and specificities that come with the territory and a sliver of self-doubt worries at his heart.

He grunts and rolls onto his side to admire Zach instead of thinking. Watching him always clears Malroth’s mind, gives him something more important to focus on. Zach is sprawled out on his back with one arm pillowing his head and the other draped across his stomach. His eyes are closed and his breathing relaxed as he lies next to Malroth. There are still the faintest impressions of glowing fingerprints littering his skin, and Malroth traces his eyes over all of them reverently. They’ll make this work somehow. They always do.

His hushed question comes out without his permission. “Are there any other kinds of kisses I should know about?”

The blankets shuffle quietly as Zach turns his head, and Malroth slowly trails his eyes up away from the glow on Zach’s thighs, his hips, his chest, all the way up his neck to lock eyes with him.

Zach’s eyes are a sleepy blue, and he blinks in drowsy confusion. Malroth asks again, “Can I only kiss you here?” He stretches his arm across the space between them and brushes his fingertips over Zach’s lips. Zach sighs out a warm breath against them.

“What if,” Malroth continues, moving his fingers to stroke across Zach’s cheek, “I want to kiss you here?”

Zach blinks again, looking more aware this time. He turns his face to rest his cheek more fully against Malroth’s palm. “You can kiss me there.”

“Show me first,” he implores.

Zach smiles like they’re sharing a secret and puts up no argument. He curls his body up to parallel Malroth’s position, twining his legs with Malroth’s as he drags himself over and settles closer beside him. Their arms overlap as Zach reaches out a hand to caress Malroth’s cheek before pressing a featherlight kiss on the skin. The doubt in Malroth’s heart shivers and dissolves with each soft stroke of Zach’s thumb on his face as he pulls away.

“Where else?” Zach whispers.

Malroth smooths his own thumb along the paper-fine skin below one of Zach’s stunning eyes and quietly revels in the faintest trace of blue his still stained fingers leave behind. “Here.”

His eyes flutter closed as Zach leans up and brushes his lips over that very spot, lips warm and lax.

Malroth doesn’t hesitate this time. He leaves a kiss of his own marked on the edge of Zach’s fair eyebrow. “And here.” Zach follows his lead and tilts his head to breathe a kiss against Malroth’s temple.

“And here?” Zach asks as he brushes a fingertip like a gentle breeze across Malroth’s eyelid, voice hushed and full of some thick emotion that Malroth can’t name. But there’s no need for any more words. He can no longer hear the distant roar of the waterfalls around them or feel the chill of the cave air on their damp skin. Their pile of blankets is an escape from the world high above their heads. There is no cold desert night or crowded dormitory or rowdy pool here. Just the two of them dressed down in the waning light and covered in a lovely glow like two embracing constellations.

He moves his hands to cradle Zach’s face on both sides and holds him like something precious and breakable and so fucking monumental as he lays a kiss on each of his fluttering eyelids. Malroth kisses his lashes for good measure and feels a tightness in his chest when Zach trembles in his hands. His heart pounds a painful, awestruck beat when a smaller hand settles on top of his own and Zach blinks wet eyes open to smile at him again.

Malroth shifts his other hand just enough to wipe gently at the moisture catching on his lashes. “You’re such a sap,” he accuses fondly.

Zach uses his free hand to wipe at his other eye and snorts. “Don’t be a dick.”

His soft smile never falters or wobbles once. He just gazes at Malroth like he holds some astounding truth or infinite depths and he’s intent on memorizing every captivating facet of him.

Malroth feels like he’s glowing from the inside out, his heart a simmering star floating pleasantly in the warmth of this shared moment. “So...is this what getting heated means? I feel so warm. Like I’m sunburnt on the inside.” He slides a thumb over Zach’s cheek, but his face is still cool. Maybe all of his warmth is on the inside too? “I guess I understand now what those miners wanted so badly.”

Zach blinks hugely at him for a silent second before his face breaks into a beautiful, delighted grin and he laughs. He won’t stop giggling long enough to answer, so Malroth squishes his cheeks between his hands in revenge, which only makes him laugh harder. He slaps at Malroth’s grip on his face and playfully struggles against him until Malroth captures him in a merciless hug and refuses to let go.

“Okay, okay, I give!” Zach wheezes through his giggles. Malroth loosens his hold but doesn’t let go, and Zach doesn’t resist further. He wriggles in place, draping one arm over Malroth’s waist and curling the other against his chest to tangle in his necklace. His eyes glitter with mischief as he finally responds, “I think that’s a conversation for another day. We’ve both had enough epiphanies for one night, don’t you think?”

“That’s not an answer!” Malroth gripes.

“Someone needs a nap,” Zach smiles even bigger, poking at his cheek.

Malroth pointedly does not pout. He would never let his face do something so atrocious.

Zach coos teasingly at him and asks, “Oh, do you need a goodnight kiss first?”

Malroth is going to wrap him up in a blanket and toss him back in the lake just like his stupid, creative drink cooling bag. But...

He wouldn’t exactly turn down one last kiss.

“How about you put your money where your mouth is?” He challenges, appreciatively taking in the matching spark in Zach’s eyes. Zach lets go of his necklace and buries his hand in Malroth’s drying, poofy hair. He pulls Malroth’s head toward him, and Malroth lets himself be drawn in by Zach’s gravity, like a planet to the sun, and let his eyes fall closed. And finally, finally, he feels the press of gentle lips—

—right on the tip of his nose.

He blinks widely in shock and crosses his eyes to stare down at his nose as if he’ll be able to see where Zach left a kiss behind. “Hey!” he demands, frowning back at him. “I thought you were gonna give me another kiss. This doesn’t count!”

He wrinkles his nose and rubs a rough finger over the tip to chase away the strange feeling. It felt like a cutesy kind of kiss that those horned dancers would share, or maybe one that Serge would go all goo goo over, but Malroth doesn’t do cutesy. He wants another reason to feel Zach warm and safe and pressed against him, and nose smooches aren’t going to cut it.

But he remembers Zach’s words from earlier about not caring whether they kiss or not. They don’t have to kiss all the time to be close. They’re still best friends, after all.

Zach’s grin is oddly smug when he says, “Too bad you didn’t specify. Sorry, I’m all out of kisses now.”

Malroth does pout this time, reputation be damned. The only person here to see him has no right to judge reputations when his own labels him as a happy-go-lucky dork most of the time. “Maybe I’m not out of kisses,” he mumbles.

Zach laughs at his antics and yawns. “We need to get some sleep. It’s too late to walk back now, and we’ll have to get up early enough to pack up before the day starts.” He pats Malroth’s chest consolingly and stretches before curling against him again like a burrowing animal.

And Malroth realizes that he’s pretty tired too. With warm food in his belly, a pile of soft blankets under him, and Zach resting soundly against him where nothing can touch him, Malroth feels his exhaustion finally catch up with him. 

He squeezes an arm securely around Zach’s back and tugs him even closer as he pulls a blanket over them. He doesn’t like the angle of Zach’s neck, lying there with his head on the ground, so he shoves another blanket haphazardly under their heads before he lets himself relax. Zach might pride himself on crafting beds as fluffy as clouds, but Malroth knows that no bed could ever compare to the comfort of falling asleep in a pile of warm blankets with his favorite builder in his arms.

Zach’s head is a comfortable weight against his shoulder and chest. He blinks at him tiredly from behind drooping golden lashes and his lips tickle Malroth’s skin when he mutters sleepily, “Sorry I didn’t bring any pillows. I didn’t think we’d be out so late.”

Malroth brushes a stray strand of hair out of Zach’s face and snorts softly. “Like I’m gonna complain about pillows after tonight. We’ll just bring those along next time too. And the torches. And your book. Let’s make a real party out of it.” They share a quiet laugh.

Zach hums against him like he’s considering whether or not to say something. Malroth waits. Zach always says what he wants to if given the chance. Though usually he’s the only one stopping himself.

“So...you really do want to come back? I know you said you did...but—”

“I did,” Malroth interrupts gently. “And I meant it. Ask me again tomorrow if you need a reminder. I don’t care where we go or when. Just make sure you’re right beside me when we do.”

Zach is silent for long enough that Malroth assumes it’s the end of the conversation, and he lets his eyes fall shut. Then he feels a soft pressure against his shoulder before Zach settles his cheek down again.

“Thought you were all out of kisses?” Malroth mumbles.

“You’ll always be an exception,” Zach promises in a whisper.

And with that, there’s nothing more to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to research what cactus juice tastes like and I even went so far as to consider buying a freakin cactus paddle from the store to try. I thankfully regained my senses, did some more digging and found ONE website that was like "haha kinda like sour watermelon!" and went GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME. So too bad if that isn't accurateXD (it might have been the cactus fruit actually?? I don't remember:O)
> 
> UMMM anyone else a little disturbed that hoodlums drop MEAT as an item when you kick their asses in the game???? No? Just me? And uh, if i remember correctly, it's already cooked???? My poor builder has DEFINITELY eaten it bc I have no shame. I turned my own sheep, Baabaara into a burger right after i accidentally killed her with my uber falcon blade, so:/
> 
> Also regarding Malroth getting tricked by Magrog over and over: you can't tell me that boy isn't just a LITTLE gullible! He's an amnesiac for god's sake! There was no way in hell I wasn't gonna have a little fun with that, and Magrog definitely strikes me as that joking uncle type who plays harmless pranks.
> 
> OKAY just the finale left! It's shorter, don't worry! I'm also gonna leave some songs in the A/N that fit the mood I wanted for this fic, so check them out if you like!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last one, guys! If you have the time, I would love to hear what you thought about this one! I tried to play with Zach's character a little more, give him more anxious tendencies since his story isn't over yet and he still has a lot of growing to do! I feel like he changes a bit every time I write him, so he's probably not the most consistent character ever haha! I love hearing your favorite quotes because everyone's are different!:D I'll see you at the end<3

** Zach **

Zach awakens to the sound of scuffling shoes, the clink of pickaxes touching stone, and no small amount of giggling.

A brassy voice above him announces loudly, “'Ey, boys, lookee what we got 'ere! We wuz all wond'rin' where you two got off to last night."

A chorus of chortles rouses Zach enough to peel a blurry eye open. He’s greeted by the lovely sight of bare collarbones where his face is pressed into Malroth’s front.

"Guess we know where they got off now!" A cacophony of laughter erupts, and Malroth finally groans and squeezes his arms more tightly around Zach as he he’s steadily nudged awake by the noise and light from new torches the miners brought down with them.

Out of the corner of his eye, Zach spies one of the guys slapping his leg and wiping away an imaginary tear on the outside of his mask. "We wuz 'eadin' down to start the day, and we find you two layabouts sleepin' the daylight away. You shoulda invited the rest of us to your little shindig!"

Zach winces at the volume of his voice and feels a petulant pout take over his face, and he burrows further into Malroth’s space to hide away from the noise. He didn’t drink enough last night to earn a true hangover, but his mouth still tastes like old dried cotton, and his head prickles with pressure and discomfort.

"Ain’t that precious, boys? Look 'ow cute the builder is! Oi, Malroff! Did you bring the builder down ‘ere to get ‘im drunk? What a dog!" Zach hears slapping sounds and guesses that they’re all patting themselves on the backs for their clever joke.

Unfortunately, Malroth still lacks understanding of the finer points of jokes sometimes.

He twists his head to glare at the lot of them. “Hey, he tried to get _me_ drunk!” he corrects completely unhelpfully. The laughter just gets louder. Zach is grateful that he didn’t drink more than he already did last night or the raucous guffawing around him would be splitting his head like a pickaxe to a seam of gold. 

He sighs and considers how he’s going to live this whole thing down after today. Maybe he can try to do some damage control before he leaves the guys to gossip like old wives down here all day and they return with hilariously exaggerated tales to share at the bar tonight.

He rubs his eyes tiredly and tries to defend himself and Malroth before his friend can open his mouth again and dig them into an even deeper hole. “We only went swimming. Don’t blow it out of proportion.”

The miner in from of him snorts in disbelief and points down at him in accusation. “You two seen yourselves in a mirror lately? Got a pretty new glow to share now, eh?”

Zach feels himself stiffen before he slowly leans back from where he’s pressed against Malroth and inspects him closely. The berry juice _still_ hasn’t worn off. Zach sees what the miners are seeing, and he blushes all the way to his hair roots.

Malroth is rumpled from sleep, an angry pout curling his blue-stained lips down and pink imprints on one cheek from where his face was pressed into the makeshift blanket-pillow. But the worst part is the faintly glowing blue spots—clearly the shape and size of fingerprints—littering his body from legs to face. Zach spies a perfect row of them lining Malroth’s hip where the blanket slid down sometime during the night. Zach’s hand rests right beside them, and even he can see how perfectly they match his own fingertips.

He moves his hand away in embarrassment and realizes that he basically just admitted to whatever the miners have managed to think up in their depraved minds. Their masks might not allow Zach to see their eyes, but he feels the mischievous gleam behind them all the same.

"If you two wanted some alone time, you shoulda just said so. We woulda left the relaxation room open for ya last night!"

Zach buries his face in his hands as the laughter crests once again. If he just lets them wear themselves out, maybe they’ll leave, and he can get dressed without being teased mercilessly for the colorful array of fingerprints painted across his thighs and back. He remembers Malroth kissing his face the night before, realizes that the miners definitely didn’t miss those marks either, and wants to die all over again.

Not unexpectedly, Malroth isn’t one to sit idle and let himself get made fun of. He pushes himself up to sit and glower at the miners. “I don’t need my club to beat you sissies into the ground. You all better break your backs today finding Zach some more gold, or I’ll break them myself when you come crawling back to town.”

The guys must be in a _really_ good mood right now at their expense because normally that brand of fiery threat would have set them running like their hind ends were burning. Instead the two of them are subjected to even more jeering and inappropriate teasing until Zach snags Malroth’s wrist and yanks him back down. He drags the blanket over their heads and traps them in the dark together to wait out the worst of the heckling storm.

Slowly but surely the sound from outside their blanket dims and wanders off and is replaced by the distant sound of clanging pickaxes and the occasional hooting laugh. Zach sighs in relief until he feels a soft touch on his face. As his eyes adjust to the dark, he can just make out Malroth’s smile a few inches from his face.

“This reminds me of the cave,” Malroth murmurs. His hand trails down from Zach’s cheek and alights on each faintly glowing blue print it passes. Zach shivers.

When Malroth’s hand comes to a rest comfortably on the skin of Zach’s hip, they lean forward wordlessly to share one more kiss before they face the day.

“This is gonna be one awkward walk of shame,” Zach giggles. “Everyone in town is gonna hear about this by tonight. You think you can deal with the teasing without taking anyone’s head off?”

Malroth flicks his nose gently and huffs. The sound is far more amused than actually grouchy. “I guess if that’s off the table, then I have to.” That earns him a playful shove from Zach before he continues. “But if they irritate me too bad, I could always drag you back down here. There’s plenty for us to do.”

Zach smirks. “Like drawing the fountain.”

Malroth’s grin grows. “Or finding that fish.”

“And we can’t forget the torches this time.” Zach reminds him.

“We could bring another picnic!” Malroth suggests.

“As long as we’re together, I’m sure we’ll find something to do.” Zach’s smile melts into something softer and more suggestive as he inches closer again to Malroth’s mouth.

“We’ve got all the time in the world,” Malroth agrees.

The clamor of pickaxes fades out as they blend together once again in a glowing blue haze beneath their blanket. They’ll have to face the hot, bright sun over Khrumbul-Dun eventually, but as long as they’re side by side, there’s nothing they can’t handle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And scene! Alright, how was that for almost 30k of ridiculous tender shit and inexperienced kissing? My heart is full but my head is empty, I have nothing else to offer;) It's uhhhhh like almost midnight here and I have to be up at 5 tomorrow, so I won't talk much longer;-; Lmk what you thought! I have the best readers this side of the galaxy and y'all are always so sweet and supportive. I love going back and rereading comments to stoke my writing fires when I hit a slump<3  
> If you guys like music for fics, here are 2 I think fit well!
> 
> Possbility - Autoheart https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCvp9ro0zKg  
> You and I - Barns Courtney https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShM_-xt1lM8  
> (the 2nd one I never really listened to during writing, but I feel like some of the lyrics fit very well, so I'm sharing it anyway!!)
> 
> Okay, sorry, I'm going to bed now. I feel like there's so much more I want to say but I can't think right now lol. Thank you again to all of my wonderful readers. You guys make writing worth it<3
> 
> (ALSO! this is my first time posting a chaptered fic so please let me know if anything got messed up when I posted (like chapters double posted or jumping around oddly). I didn't have time to check tonight but I hate to leave it like that bc y'all are too polite to say anythingXD


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